


Becoming Human

by imaginary_golux



Series: Compassion [2]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Cat!Phasma, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/F, Kidfic, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-03-19
Packaged: 2018-05-17 08:32:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 21,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5861722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginary_golux/pseuds/imaginary_golux
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phasma has been a Stormtrooper all her life, and she's good at it. If you asked her, she'd say she'd only stop being a Stormtrooper when she died.</p><p>...Mind you, being turned into a cat wouldn't have been on the list of possible alternatives mostly because it would be far too absurd to contemplate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. In Which Phasma Is Turned Into A Cat (And Is Very Annoyed)

Phasma has been a Stormtrooper since she was a child. She was _good_ at it, skillful and even-tempered and loyal; good enough that she rose through the ranks with nearly blistering speed. She earned her name and position on some backwater planet when she saved the life of the Supreme Leader by dint of intelligence and quick-thinking action, and she is _proud_ to be the best of the best, the living embodiment of the arm of the First Order.

The first crack in her worldview comes when FN-2187 defects. She’d had high hopes for him: he was smart and skilled and quick on his feet, officer material if she ever saw it. The only problem was that unfortunate streak of empathy, and Phasma had plans for weeding _that_ out of him quickly enough. There is no place for empathy and compassion among the Stormtroopers of the First Order: there is only obedience. But then he is gone, him and the Resistance pilot, and Phasma has her first moment of doubt: did she misjudge him? Has the training program become flawed? Will _other_ Stormtroopers begin to defect? She examines her troops minutely, scrutinizes their personnel files, looking for any echoes of the flaws which caused FN-2187 to fail.

The second crack comes when FN-2187 returns, with a smuggler and a Wookiee and a wild look in his eyes, to rescue the girl that Kylo Ren is so obsessively interested in. Phasma assumes they will fail - assumes that her other Stormtroopers will be skilled enough to capture or kill these invaders, which is why she does as they tell her, stalling for time - but they _succeed_. By the time she has fought her way out of the garbage chute, rallied as many of her troops as she can find, and made her way to the command center, the Resistance fighters have - impossibly, unthinkably - managed to destroy the oscillator and destabilize the entire _planet_ , and Kylo Ren has apparently had the bantha shit beaten out of him by the girl he was trying to interrogate. Phasma gets as many of her troops into transports as possible while General Hux goes to retrieve Kylo Ren, and evacuates with _far_ fewer people than she is happy about; and as she watches the planet implode behind them, she realizes: this was FN-2187’s work. He really _was_ that good, and all that talent and potential is now lost to the First Order, gone over to the Resistance because of his damned compassion.

And yet even that compassion did not stop him from destroying Starkiller Base.

Phasma has a few months to think about this while the First Order gets its feet back under it after the disasters of the _Finalizer_ and Starkiller. General Hux is spitting mad, in his own understated way, and blames everything on the Stormtroopers’ incompetence, which makes Phasma furious: the _Stormtroopers_ did not design Starkiller with such an easily exploitable hole in its defenses, nor did they concentrate on personal vendettas instead of dealing with actual military problems during the fiasco. They obeyed orders and held their posts, as they were meant to do, and many of them died doing it. Kylo Ren is not angry at the Stormtroopers specifically: he is angry at _everything_ , including, Phasma suspects, himself, for letting the girl get away. Phasma’s not quite sure why this one girl is so very important to Kylo Ren. She’s also not sure why Sith Lords get free rein to kill their subordinates whenever they feel like it; it’s undisciplined and a waste of perfectly good Stormtroopers, and is _awful_ for morale. But no one asks her, so she keeps her mouth shut and does her duty and only raises any objections in closed-door meetings where the rank and file cannot see their commanders disagreeing, as is proper.

And she thinks about FN-2187, the author of all of this chaos, and wonders, in the dark moments before dawn when sleep does not come easy to her, whether compassion is really that much of a weakness after all.

During the day, such concerns seem silly, and she puts them from her mind.

She is sent on a mission to a nameless planet - sent like a common Stormtrooper, and she does not speak the words which are bitter on her tongue, but salutes and goes - only to find that the Resistance fighters are there before her, and they have new tactics. She has just enough time to curse FN-2187 again, because _surely_ he is responsible for this, when the worst pain she has ever felt in her life, worse than any of the trainings to resist interrogation or the time she managed to irritate the Supreme Leader, engulfs her. It feels like every inch of her skin is burning, while her bones are twisting and also her throat has had a red-hot poker rammed down it. She can’t even scream.

When the pain stops, she is...shorter. That’s the first thing she notices, actually. She’s used to looking _down_ at almost everything, and now she’s looking _up_. She tries to get to her feet, and finds, first, that one of her limbs is broken - painful, but bearable - and second, that she appears to have four feet. She looks down to find _paws_ , and is staring in blank and uncomprehending shock when someone says, “Oh, you poor creature.”

She is almost unsurprised to see, when she looks up, that the speaker is FN-2187. Of _course_ he is here at yet another disaster. She yowls when he picks her up, tries to claw his arms - realizes that she is a cat, how _mortifying_ \- and is unceremoniously wrapped up in her own cloak.

She goes silent and still, waiting to see what will happen next. If he recognizes her, she will likely be slain immediately; if he does not, well, perhaps she will learn something of interest.  
It is as he is boarding the transport with her in his arms that she realizes that if her sudden transformation had been a _Resistance_ plot, he’d have known who she was. He doesn’t. Therefore…

Therefore she really wants to claw Hux’s smarmy face off, and then take bloody chunks out of that asshole Kylo Ren. Because the only people who both _could_ and _would_ have done this, if not the Resistance, are her colleagues.

*

She wakes up from sedation in a small room with two bunks and two doors and a closet; it smells like FN-2187, which...it’s a little disconcerting that she now recognizes his _smell_ , but presumably that’s part of being a cat. It also smells like someone else, someone female, that Phasma does not recognize.

Also it smells like meat, which is suddenly the best smell in the world. But before she eats, Phasma carefully checks her surroundings and her own self, paying particular attention to the new cast on her leg.

She’s honestly a little surprised that she woke up. If one of _her_ troops had brought a cat back to base, well, sedation is actually a kinder death than the animal would have gotten. That damned compassion again, and now she owes her life to it. How...irritating.

The meat tastes good - no additives or poisons that she can detect - and the litterbox is...thoughtful, if mortifying. She retreats to the most defensible position, under the unknown woman’s bunk, and hunkers down to consider her options.

She’s not currently in any danger. She _could_ try to escape from this room - she has no doubt she could manage it - but between her broken foreleg and her unfortunate feline shape, she’s pretty sure she couldn’t steal a shuttle. And even if she did, she would have a seriously hard time communicating with anyone in the First Order, except maybe Kylo Ren, if he could be induced to read her mind - and since he’s her top pick for the asshole who _did_ this to her, she sure as hell doesn’t want to let him go rummaging around in her head. Also, if she tried and failed to steal a shuttle, the Resistance would be aware that she is not, in fact, a cat, and would probably take steps to attempt to interrogate her. Phasma doesn’t know what Resistance interrogation techniques are, but if she can avoid that, she would prefer it.

So the sensible thing to do is to stay right here, in this room where she is safe and will be fed and her injuries cared for - she realizes she is licking her own fur, and stops abruptly. So this form comes with its own instincts and reactions. Interesting. And since she does not wish to deal with the indignity of being bathed by FN-2187, she had better let her instincts deal with matters of hygiene.

She turns her mind back to her situation and carefully ignores the fact that she has managed to twist herself improbably around and is licking the small of her own back. The sensible thing to do _is_ to stay right here until she is healed, but unfortunately she knows the regulations regarding First Order operatives who spend more than three days in Resistance custody: upon their return, they are rigorously interrogated and then shot. The assumption is, of course, that they have been reconditioned to serve the Resistance, and returned as spies. If Phasma takes more than another day to return to the First Order - assuming it has been at least a day and half since her capture - then she will be treated like any other member of the First Order’s military. Which brings her right back to letting that asshole Kylo Ren root around in her mind.

...Actually she’s a little impressed by the planning that must have gone into this scheme. Any way this turns out, practically, Hux and Kylo Ren win, insofar as getting Phasma out of the way is winning. If she’d been told to work out the probable outcomes of such a scheme, she would have assumed that either she would have been shot on sight while on the battlefield, killed when brought to the Resistance base, killed on sight if she returned to the First Order as a cat, or interrogated and then killed if she returned to the First Order in her proper form. Or that she’d end up spending the rest of her life as a cat in some Resistance-friendly family’s home or on the nameless planet where she was transformed. Clever.

So at this point if she _wants_ to claw bloody chunks out of the assholes who have transformed and betrayed her - and she does, oh, how she does; what must they be doing to her troops now that she is gone? How smug must they be that they have gotten her out of the way so untraceably and irrevocably? - well, she’s only got one option. She’s going to have to figure out how to transform back, and then, well...she’s going to have to defect. Phasma is reasonably sure that if she offers the Resistance everything she knows about the First Order, they’ll do her the courtesy of letting her have first shot at Hux, at least, and this plan has his slimy fingermarks _all_ over it. Kylo Ren is probably _directly_ responsible, but there’s no way that whiny, undisciplined little _ass_ ever came up with something this clever on his own. No, Phasma wants Hux’s balls for earrings, and…

Cats are astonishingly bloodthirsty, Phasma thinks. She _never_ lets herself get that angry. Anger is counterproductive and not good for discipline. Her cat-mind, though, seems very pleased to imagine clawing furrows in Hux’s smarmy face. So. A bad temper came with the fur and claws. Good to know.

*

The next few days are...difficult. Phasma objects _strenuously_ to the attempts FN-2187 makes to pet her, because she may be a cat but she still has her dignity. But she can’t quite help listening to the stories he and the pilot tell each other. She also can’t help noticing that he and the pilot have an emotional bond of the sort that she always tried her hardest to discourage among her Stormtroopers. Of course FN-2187 has formed an emotional bond. Compassion again. Weakness.

...Also it’s kind of sickening to watch them moon over each other. Phasma thinks that if she could speak, she’d be tempted to tell them to just become intimate already and stop looking adoringly at each other when they think the other isn’t looking.

Phasma finally gives in to being petted after several days of being coaxed closer with dried fish. The fish tastes unreasonably good - as a human she doesn’t even _like_ fish, but her cat body adores it - and FN-2187’s wheedling is getting annoying. And then Phasma discovers that being petted feels _nice_. Astonishingly, distressingly nice. The first time she hears herself purr, she’s so startled she retreats under the empty bunk for hours. Purring is simply undignified. But along with the temper and the fur and the claws, apparently the cat form comes with the instinct to purr, and Phasma resigns herself to the indignity and starts letting FN-2187 scratch her behind the ears. As long as she is a cat, there’s no point acting like she’s human, after all.

She tries not to feel sympathy for FN-2187 when he talks to her in the dark hours about choices, about the difficulty of building a life which is not simply following orders. If he had remained with the First Order, he would not have such problems, and the Starkiller Base would not have been destroyed, and in all likelihood Phasma would not be in her current situation. Though even in her most feline bloodthirsty moments she cannot quite blame him for Hux and Kylo Ren’s deciding to turn her into a cat. That was _all_ them. Assholes. But still. FN-2187 made his choices, and now he has to live with them.

The fact that she suspects that when she regains her human form, if she ever does, she will have to contend with many of the same new troubles - that has nothing to do with the fact that she starts sleeping on top of FN-2187, curled in a little ball with her tail tucked under her paws. Nope. She’s definitely not trying to comfort him, or herself, in this strange new place. It’s just that he’s warm and her cat form appreciates warmth.

...Oh, hell, Phasma hasn’t gotten this far in life by _lying_ to herself. She’s trying to comfort them both, because she knows very well that once she has to start making _choices_ , instead of just following orders, she’s going to be just as confused and dismayed and wrong-footed as FN-2187 is, if not more so, since she’s been a Stormtrooper rather longer than he ever was, and more devotedly. She’s going to be a mess when and if she gets her human form back. But with any luck, she’ll be a mess who has the opportunity to tear Hux’s smarmy face off, so it’ll be worth it.

*

By the time Phasma gets her cast off, she’s also begun to worry a little about regaining her human form. She’s been a cat for almost a month now, and the transformation has not worn off. She could attempt to draw someone’s attention to her - her best idea thus far involves writing in the clean litterbox some morning - but that is both undignified and likely to get her put in a small cell in perpetuity, since presumably if Kylo Ren was the one to cattify her, she’ll need an equivalently-powerful Force user to _uncattify_ her. And there isn’t one on base, so far as she can tell.

She’s just really beginning to worry - she doesn’t really have a Plan B, since remaining a cat is simply unacceptable - when FN-2187 returns to his room with a woman behind him. The woman smells familiar: she is the owner of the second bunk. She also smells oddly like Kylo Ren, but not in any way Phasma has learned to recognize during her time as a cat. Phasma knows how to identify sex and age and emotion by smell, now, an ability she never had any particular desire for, but this woman smells oddly like _lightning_.

Then the woman hunkers down to offer her hand to Phasma, and Phasma gets a proper look at her face. Oh. This is the girl Kylo Ren is so obsessed with. Which means this is a girl who can control the Force.

Phasma is so glad to see _anyone_ who could possibly get her back into her proper form that she bumps her head enthusiastically on the woman’s bent knee, purring like a motor. Then, of course, she is hideously embarrassed by her own emotional outburst, and retreats under the bunk. Ugh. Being human again _cannot_ come quickly enough.

Still, even Phasma is slightly surprised when her opportunity to become human again arrives the very next day. She’s also mildly impressed that FN-2187 manages to identify her as soon as being told that she’s actually human - that’s some quick thinking on his part. Damn, why did he have to defect? He would have been a _magnificent_ Stormtrooper.

When the old man who smells of lightning knocks her out, Phasma fully expects to wake up in a cell, possibly still a cat, possibly human but restrained. She is surprised to wake up both human and without manacles on her wrists. _She_ would have restrained a prisoner, especially one as high-ranking as she is. On the other hand, they have a Force-user who can knock people unconscious with a gesture, possibly two; she might not be as much of a threat as all that. She stands and turns to face General Leia Organa - she knows who Leia Organa is, of course, since the older woman is classified as a Category One threat to the First Order, with instructions from Supreme Leader Snoke to shoot on sight - and waits for the questions to start. Or the torture. If she were FN-2187, she might want to hurt her old commander. Though his inexplicable compassion might mitigate the desire somewhat.

...Of course the pilot decides to be irreverent. If he’d been one of hers, Phasma would have beaten that tendency out of him; but it does break the tension, rather. She sighs at FN-2187 and his pilot, and braces herself, and tells him the absolute truth as she knows it: “Your compassion is a weakness.” And then, because she does not lie to herself, and as long as she is switching sides she will do it _properly_ , she adds, “Thank you for saving my life. Also, I suspect I speak for _everyone on this base_ when I say that you and your pilot should stop dancing around each other already.”

Phasma is honestly rather surprised when this results in the two of them apparently deciding to become intimate partners. She hadn’t expected them to be so sensible. She is also surprised by the approving looks that her words earn her from the male Force-user and General Organa. “You’re all quite mad,” she informs them, and then finds she cannot disagree when FN-2187 points out that she’ll fit right in. He is, unfortunately, quite correct.

Perhaps she should have stayed a cat.


	2. In Which Phasma Is Interrogated Repeatedly

Phasma is somewhat relieved that the _next_ thing that happens is the General sitting her down in a vaguely uncomfortable chair, with the two Force-users on either side of her, and questioning her for several hours. Phasma relates what feels like her entire life history, as honestly and completely as she can, because firstly, she is trying to gain at least enough of these people’s trust that they won’t kill her out of hand, and secondly, she’s reasonably sure from the comments the Force-users are exchanging that they could tell if she was lying. Also, FN-2187 is sitting in a corner with his pilot and is occasionally asked to confirm things. As interrogations go, it is thorough but not painful, for which Phasma is vaguely grateful, since the echoes of the pain of being turned _back_ are still in her bones.

Finally the General - Phasma finds that she cannot think of the older woman as anything but _the_ General, now; she has presence that Hux and Kylo Ren would _kill_ to have - leans back in her chair (it is far more comfortable-looking than Phasma’s) and says, “So, to sum up, you are motivated entirely by a desire to take bloody vengeance on the men who turned you into a cat.”

“Essentially, yes,” says Phasma calmly. It’s the truth.

“Huh,” says the General. “I can work with that. You’re hired. Get down to med bay and see what the hell being a cat for a month has done to your health.”

Phasma stands and comes to attention. “Yes, General,” she says, and only barely manages to stop herself from saluting. She’ll have to learn how Resistance fighters salute, if they do - somehow she suspects that a First Order salute would not be taken well.

“Rey, will you escort her?” the General asks, and the woman who smells like lightning - the one Kylo Ren is obsessed with - nods.

“Sure, General,” she says, and then, “Come on, then, Phasma.”

Phasma has not been called by her bare name in...ever, actually. She was Captain Phasma to everyone in the First Order, the rank as much a part of her designation as the name, and before that she was AS-1643. It’s vaguely uncomfortable. She realizes, suddenly, that she’s going to have to get used to calling other people by names, not simply designations. That’s...going to take some serious getting used to.

Well, Phasma has never failed at anything she set her mind to. She nods to the woman - to _Rey_. “I follow,” she says, and falls in behind her. Rey is much smaller than Phasma is, slender and eight inches shorter, but Phasma knows that Rey beat the bantha shit out of Kylo Ren, and is not inclined to underestimate the other woman. Even leaving aside the Force-powers, which Phasma does not pretend to understand, Rey is obviously both physically strong and remarkably agile. She would be a pleasure to spar against, should sparring with a partner be something people in the Resistance do.

They are in a nondescript hallway with no one else around when Rey wheels around and gives Phasma a long, evaluating glare. Phasma stops and waits for Rey’s verdict. Weaponless as she is, Phasma could _still_ defend herself - but this is a woman as powerful as Kylo Ren, and Phasma doesn’t really want to spend another month as a cat. So she waits.

“You give Finn any shit at all, and I will _end_ you,” Rey says finally. “Maybe you’re an intelligence treasure trove and maybe you’re on our side now that you’ve realized that your former masters are assholes, but Finn is my _friend_ and I won’t stand for you to hurt him.”

“I understand and will comply,” Phasma says, because if she knows nothing else, she knows how to take orders.

“Okay, good, but also, that’s just creepy,” Rey says, and turns around and leads the way to the med bay. Phasma stays two steps behind her and spends the rest of the walk wondering what, precisely, Rey found ‘creepy’ about her response. It was perfectly proper, exactly the way a subordinate should acknowledge orders from a superior. Perhaps they use a different phrase, here, she concludes. She will have to learn it as soon as possible.

The med droids take half a dozen blood samples and as many scans, which Phasma bears with patience and resignation, and eventually conclude that she is fit for duty. Phasma could have told them that. But then one of them says something that _does_ surprise her: “Patient’s systems have been purged of ninety-five point four percent of conditioning drugs and suppressants,” it informs Phasma and Rey, “estimating previous concentrations by body mass of patient as compared to initial scans of patient Finn.”

Finn? Phasma wonders, and then remembers that FN-2187 has a name now. She supposes that blowing up Starkiller Base might count as an impressive enough achievement to warrant a name. Finn. She files it in her memory. Something tells her that using his previous designation will count, in Rey’s judgement, as hurting Finn, and Phasma does not wish to find out what penalties the young Force-user might assess for such a violation of her order. But once she has sorted that out - “I was exempt from the drug regimen,” she objects. “There should be no such drugs in my blood.”

“Regret to inform you they are unequivocally present,” the med droid replies.

Phasma is not actually offended by the presence of drugs in her system. All her Stormtroopers took the drugs - they were in the standard-issue rations, for ease of issuance - and she herself took them during her years in the ranks. But she was promised - _promised_ \- by Supreme Leader Snoke when she became Phasma rather than AS-1643 that she was now exempt from that sort of control, that by her actions she had proven herself loyal without the influence of drugs. And that was well before she was under the command of either General Hux _or_ that whiny asshole Kylo Ren, which means that the only person who could have ensured that her food was drugged, the only person with the rank and means and motive to do so, would have been the Supreme Leader himself.

Phasma has never asked anything of her superiors but that they give orders, but a lie of this _magnitude_ of this one is momentarily stunning. She proved herself, she _proved_ her loyalty, and still he distrusted her enough to lie to her very face. “Do you suppose the General would allow me to break the Supreme Leader’s legs before she dispatches him?” Phasma asks Rey politely.

Rey gets a very strange look on her face. Phasma’s still not good at interpreting human expressions - it’s not as though most of the people she interacted with on a daily basis had bare faces, after all - but she thinks it might be amusement. “I suspect if you asked nicely she’d hand you the blunt instrument,” Rey says after a moment.

“That would be very satisfying,” Phasma says.

Rey grins, then wrinkles her nose. “You know, you got the easier method of getting the contaminants out of your system,” she observes. “Finn was in a coma for a month.”

Phasma considers this. “On the whole, I think being a cat was preferable,” she decides.

*

Rey leads Phasma through the base to the Quartermaster, who squints at Phasma and provides a pile of clothing in neutral browns, neither the shiny chrome of her proper armor nor the sensible black of her undersuit; Phasma makes no objection. Here, after all, she is not a captain; she is a new recruit, and one not trusted. Rey has clearly been designated as her commanding officer; if Rey wants her to wear brown, then Phasma will wear brown. Thus far, Rey has shown no sign of either violent rage nor overwhelming arrogance, which already makes her rather better than either of Phasma’s previous commanding officers; and it is worth noting that Rey is apparently the person who turned Phasma back into her human form, for which Phasma is rather grateful. Being a cat had begun to grow irritating.

After the Quartermaster, Rey brings Phasma to a familiar hallway: this is where Rey and Finn have their room. Rey stops at a door right next to her own. “This will be yours,” she informs Phasma. “I don’t think anyone’s going to want to room with you, so it’s a single. And you’re right next to me, so if you get any clever ideas about betraying us, I _will_ hear you thinking about it, and I _will_ stop you. Clear?”

“Clear,” Phasma replies. Sensible, too, and rather more pragmatic than Phasma expected from an idealistic Resistance fighter.

“Put your stuff down and I’ll show you the mess hall,” Rey orders. “And then I’ll bring you down to Major Ematt. He’s the head of our ground troops, and he’ll want to know anything you can tell us. Finn knows a lot, but he only knows the perspective of the common Stormtroopers; you’ll be telling Major Ematt how the higher-ups think.”

“I understand and will comply,” Phasma says. Rey winces again. Phasma has _got_ to learn the proper response. Irritating her commanding officer is not a good way of ingratiating herself with the Resistance.

*

Major Ematt is an older human male with grey hair and piercing brown eyes, who looks Phasma up and down and says to Rey, “Leia warned me you’d be bringing her down. You can leave her here; we’ll be a while, and I know you have training.”

“She’s under my...I suppose protection,” Rey says to him. Phasma is startled, though she keeps her face blank. “Don’t let anyone do her any damage.”

“I can’t promise people won’t give her some verbal crap,” Major Ematt says.

“No, that’s to be expected,” Rey replies. “Force knows _I’d_ like to take chunks out of her for what she was going to do to Finn. But she’s ours now, and we’re better than that.”

Major Ematt claps Rey on the shoulder. “I’ll give her back to you without any damage,” he promises, and Rey nods to him, then turns to Phasma.

“Tell him anything he wants to know,” she orders, and Phasma nods.

“I will,” she says, because what she _wants_ to say is ‘I understand and will comply,’ but irritating Rey further when she’s already admitted to wanting to harm Phasma seems unwise.

“Good,” says Rey, and leaves.

*

Major Ematt’s interrogation is as thorough as the General’s was, but focuses entirely on tactics and strategy used by the Stormtroopers and their commanders. By the end of the session, Phasma feels like she has been wrung dry, but she is also astonished, because a decent proportion of the questions were about how to induce Stormtroopers to _surrender_.

She is feeling tired and out-of-it enough to venture a question, despite her own misgivings about doing so, once Major Ematt seems to be finished with his notes. “Why do you want the Stormtroopers to surrender?”

“Because there’s a decent chance that some of them might actually be _people_ under all that armor,” Major Ematt says wearily. “Like Finn. Maybe the First Order thinks nothing of slaughtering innocents, but _we_ prefer not to inflict huge amounts of collateral damage, and from what Finn’s told us about the training process, you take - the First Order takes - _infants_ and raises them to be weapons. That makes them victims in my book, and in the General’s, as surely as the people they shoot are victims. If we can capture them instead of killing them, and strip the drugs out of their systems, well, they might still choose to be our enemies. But then again, they might not.”

Phasma stares at him blankly. The idea of taking your enemies and converting them is not unfamiliar to her - it is, after all, the reason she cannot return to the First Order, as she would be assumed to be a Resistance plant after so long in their hands - but the idea of taking your enemies, caring for them, and then _letting them keep being enemies_ is...incomprehensible and unspeakably foolish.

Something of her shock must show on her face, because Major Ematt glances up and gives her a wry grin. “Mind you, I don’t mean to say that the ones who still hate us would be handed their weapons and let go. That would be idiotic.”

Phasma relaxes a little. Alright, these people aren’t _completely_ insane. Just...mostly.

*

Rey returns a few minutes later, and Major Ematt dismisses Phasma with an absent wave. She follows Rey out and back to the mess hall, where she is confronted by the uncomfortable realization that she doesn’t actually recognize any of the food.

Finn and the pilot - Poe Dameron, Phasma recalls, and files the name carefully away - come in just after Rey and Phasma, and Finn takes a long look at Phasma and then gestures for her to follow him. She does, quashing the brief moment of fury at being ordered around by one of her own subordinates: that was then and this is now, and _here_ Finn is a valued member of the Resistance, trusted by the General, and Phasma is a recruit on probation.

“I had to ask Poe about the food, back when I first woke up,” Finn tells her conversationally. “Apparently no one else uses pre-portioned protein bars as a primary food source. The cooks here are very good, or so I’m assured, so almost anything will be tasty. This service line is for human and humanoid foods; over there is the stuff for nonhumans. For protein you’re going to want something from one of these trays - one patty or slice is usually a serving - and then for supplements you’ll want at least three things from those trays over there. Everything’s labeled, so you can memorize the names for the things that taste best to you. Oh, and anything with _this_ label,” he points to a little illustration of a red...curved thing...next to one tray of...meat? probably meat, Phasma decides, “that means it’s spicy, so take a small piece and be careful, don’t just bite in like you would normally.” He grins. “Otherwise your mouth feels like it’s on fire and then you have to drink as much milk as you can find to make it stop.”

“Understood,” Phasma says, and takes a plate and follows him through the line, taking what he takes, in larger portions, since she masses more than he does. She sits down at the same table as Finn and Poe and Rey; Poe gives her a slightly dubious look, then shrugs, and Rey hands her a napkin from the dispenser at the end of the table.

Phasma is used to eating quickly and efficiently. No one lingers over their protein bar in the First Order mess; it’s a bland, boring meal at the best of times, and moreover mealtimes are only a quarter of an hour long, which encourages the Stormtroopers to eat fast. She assumes she can do the same here, at least until she takes the first bite of what the sign informed her was Avian with Blumfruit Chutney.

Then she sits quietly for a moment while her mouth informs her that Avian with Blumfruit Chutney may just be the most marvelous thing in the universe, even better than catfood.

Fruit Salad is also pretty good. So is Assorted Vegetable Medley. Flatbread with Herbs is...Phasma realizes she doesn’t have _words_ for how good any of this is. She’s never had such a meal in her life, and suddenly she is _furious_ with the entire First Order. Food like this existed, and she didn’t even _know_?

Finn pushes something across the table to her: a mug full of some thick brown liquid. He has one of his own, she notices, so this is probably not a prank; nonetheless she waits until he has taken a sip of his own mug before she lifts hers to her lips. Her first sip is tentative.

She puts the mug down only when it is empty, and stares across the table at Finn, who looks _distinctly_ smug. “What is that?” she demands. Finn laughs.

“Welcome to the society of people who think that hot chocolate is the most wonderful thing in the known galaxy,” he says. “Rey and I are founding members. We have badges.”

“They do,” Poe says, mournfully. “Doesn’t _anyone_ else at this table like caf?”

“I like _sleep_ ,” Rey says pointedly, and Finn nods.

Phasma is struck dumb by the sheer _silliness_ of the whole exchange. These are the best fighters the Resistance has to offer? But, she reminds herself, between them they blew up the Starkiller Base and nearly killed Kylo Ren in single combat. So this ridiculous behavior is not all there is to them. But still. Her troops would _never_ have been so...frivolous.

Her troops, who she will never command again; who she has betrayed quite comprehensively to their enemies. Suddenly she is no longer hungry. She stacks her utensils neatly on her plate, as she has seen others in the mess hall do, and asks Rey, “May I be dismissed?”

Rey flinches. Phasma does not frown, but she is _deeply_ puzzled. What is she saying wrong?

“Yeah,” Rey says, “I suppose you _have_ had a long day. G’wan. You remember the way back to your bunk?”

“I do,” Phasma confirms, and when Rey nods permission, she leaves the mess hall as quickly as she can.

*

Her bunk is about the same size as the quarters she was assigned on the _Finalizer_ , and a little smaller than her rooms on the Starkiller Base. There is a bed and a closet and a tiny private refresher, and not much else. Phasma takes a few minutes to hang her new brown uniforms up tidily - she only had time to leave them on the bed, earlier - and then takes a hot shower and composes herself to sleep. She’s never had any trouble sleeping before.

She is still awake hours later, staring into the darkness of her room and turning the last month over and over in her mind. She cannot seem to shut it off. At last she rises and turns the light on, and begins doing basic stretches in the middle of the room. There’s not enough space to do anything terribly energetic, but she can at least work some of the kinks out of her spine.

The knock on her door startles her, as much because whoever is knocking has even that much respect for her privacy as because someone is trying to get her attention at oh one twenty in the morning. She opens the door to find Rey, in a loose tunic and baggy pants, looking bleary and mildly irritated.

“C’mon,” Rey says, and leads Phasma down nearly-empty corridors until they reach a large room with padding on the floor. Rey moves out into the middle of the room, takes up a guard stance. Phasma waits to see what Rey desires.

“You need sleep,” Rey tells her. “Come and spar. I’ll wear you out.”

Phasma is faintly worried that she might hurt the smaller woman, but she takes up her own position willingly enough. Sparring might be enough to tire her, if Rey is as good as Phasma hopes.

Rey _is_ that good. She moves like lightning, swift and sure and deadly, and she’s much stronger than she looks, and she doesn’t pull her punches. Phasma is actually hard-pressed to keep up with her, though her own greater strength does give her a very slight advantage when it comes to grappling. Phasma loses track of time as they dance back and forth across the mats, and when Rey finally signals the end of the bout and steps back, wiping the sweat from her face, Phasma glances up at the clock and is astonished to see that they have spent nearly an hour and a half at their battle. Phasma is also mildly surprised to find that she _is_ tired, now, tired enough that even her racing mind will not be able to keep her awake.

“Thank you,” she says, and Rey gives her a tired grimace of a smile.

“Welcome,” she says, and leads Phasma back to their side-by-side rooms. Finn pokes his head out of the room he and Rey share and looks the two of them up and down as they approach, then grins.

“You gotta do that when I’m awake sometime,” he says to Rey. “I want to see you sparring with her - that’s gotta be _beautiful_.”

“I’m sure it’ll happen again,” Rey says, and Phasma nods goodnight to both of them and retreats into her room for a swift shower, after which she is immensely grateful to find that she is more than capable of falling asleep.


	3. In Which Phasma Begins to Learn How to Be Human

Phasma wakes up at oh five thirty feeling bruised all over, which, she finds as she is getting changed from her sleep clothing into one of her new brown uniforms, is an accurate assessment of her physical status. Rey may be tiny, but she’s very strong. If Phasma were assessing her in Stormtrooper training, she would have marked her for as much advanced instruction as possible, and also for advancement into officer ranks.

Two hours isn’t really enough sleep, but Phasma has had days where she had less, and she knows how to deal with it. She finds her way to the mess hall and discovers the delights of breakfast porridge - “Put some sweet on it,” one of the cooks advises her, “and some fruit.” Phasma does, and is deeply pleased. She also discovers caf, which - well, hot chocolate is preferable on taste and texture, but, as she suspected from what Rey and Finn said about it last night, caf is a very good way of waking herself up. She drinks two cups of it, hot and bitter, before she brings her tray over to the return stack and then realizes, with a sort of jarring abruptness, that she has no idea what her duties are.

That...that has never happened before. So long as she can remember, she has _always_ had duties to perform. When she was a cadet, she had lessons and physical training and cleaning duties. When she was a common Stormtrooper, she had physical training and mission training and cleaning duties. (There is a lot of cleaning that needs to happen, after all.) When she was Captain Phasma of the First Order, she had paperwork and physical training and mission training and overseeing Stormtrooper training and meeting with commanding officers and, thankfully, no cleaning duties except polishing her armor. But she has been assigned no duties here that she knows of. Rey has given her no orders regarding her daily routine. The General has not summoned her; Major Ematt did not order her to return to his office for further interrogation.

Phasma is sore and tired and jittery from the caf - perhaps having the second cup was foolish of her - and now the last bastion of her old life has been pulled out from under her, and she doesn’t know what to _do_. She has a sudden, vivid understanding of what Finn was talking about, weeks ago while she was his cat, about having choices and not knowing what to do with them. At the time she thought his compassion, his weakness was crippling him; now she wonders that he has been so strong.

And then she falls back on her oldest training, and goes around to ask the cooks if they need a spare set of hands washing dishes. The cooks give her very dubious looks, but one blue humanoid shrugs and agrees, and sets her up at a sink with a pile of dirty dishes and a sponge and as much hot soapy water as she could desire. Phasma sets herself to cleaning, putting her whole attention on it so that she won’t have to think about anything else.

The cooks kick her out - politely - after the mess hall’s breakfast hours end. Her hands are wrinkled and pink from the hot water, and she has managed to spend two peaceful hours thinking about nothing but scrubbing debris from plates and cups and forks. Also, some of the caf-induced jitteriness has worn off.

She returns to her room, for lack of any better idea, and has only just arrived when a knock on her door announces Rey and the older Force-user. “Master Skywalker and I are going on a short mission,” Rey says, handing Phasma a small carrysack, “and he thinks it’d do you good to come with us. Grab a few changes of clothes - we’ll be gone less than a week.”

Phasma tucks her new brown uniforms into the carrysack and follows Rey and Master Skywalker - the name rings a faint bell, something Kylo Ren said once - out through the base to a ship hangar, where an enormous Wookiee is waiting for them. Phasma remembers the Wookiee: it threatened to crush her head, back on Starkiller Base. It would find such a trick far easier now that she is not wearing her helmet. She regards it warily. It looks her up and down, then growls something to Rey, who shrugs.

“She wants to get revenge on the First Order,” she says. “And if she tries anything, Master Luke or I will knock her out again.” The Wookiee yowls dubiously, but steps back to let them enter the ship.

Phasma looks the ship over as she goes up the ramp: it is old, but in good repair, and a decent size for a merchant vessel. She’s wondering faintly who the pilot will be: she herself has no particular skill at flying a starship, though she took the required training courses. Perhaps the Wookiee is the pilot?

But Rey drops cheerfully into the pilot’s seat, with the Wookiee in the copilot’s chair, and starts the ship up with swift, practiced motions. Phasma stands in the doorway watching, thinking that here is something else which Rey does with grace and precision. Such manifold competence on the part of her commanding officer is quite reassuring: Rey will likely not give foolish orders, since she knows what it is like to fight or to fly, and what can be reasonably expected of the troops under her command. Which, admittedly, appears to be only Phasma at the moment. Phasma has not quite figured out the Resistance hierarchy yet. She tries to sketch the organizational chart in her head, but while she is sure the General is at the top, and Rey apparently reports to Master Skywalker, and Major Ematt is in charge of the ground troops, well, beyond that she’s not sure who answers to whom. She will have to pay closer attention.

Once they are in hyperspace, Rey stands, surrendering the pilot’s seat to Master Skywalker, and gestures for Phasma to follow her. “We’re rooming together,” she explains. “Master Luke and Chewie have the other room.” She looks up at Phasma and gives her a wry grin. “The bunks are long enough for Chewie, so you should fit.”

“Where are we going?” Phasma inquires. “And what are my duties on this mission?”

“We’re going to Taris,” Rey tells her, “looking for information on the First Order’s movements. Your duties are to look intimidating and let me know if anything smells funny - if you think we’re about to be ambushed, that sort of thing. And once we’ve got the information, you can tell us if it makes any sense.”

Phasma considers this. “The Wookiee could look intimidating,” she points out, “and I could be more easily controlled at the base.”

Rey nods. “Master Luke thinks - and I agree - that you need to see what it’s like to live outside the First Order’s control.” She opens a hatch and gestures for Phasma to precede her into the small room; Rey’s things are piled on one bunk, so Phasma puts her own bag down on the other. “You don’t know anything but being a Stormtrooper,” Rey continues, leaning against the doorway while Phasma puts her clothing in the empty locker at the foot of the bed. “This might show you what you’ve been missing.” She shrugs. “Force knows Finn and I have been learning new things every day, practically; sometimes I wonder how Poe puts up with all our stupid questions.”

Phasma, crouched on the floor by the locker, looks up at her dubiously. “Finn’s confusion I understand,” she says, and does not actually ask a question, because she has already asked three, and she is not sure how many questions she is allowed to ask before Rey becomes angry with her insubordination. But Rey answers the implied question anyway.

“I grew up as a scavenger on Jakku,” she says bluntly. “I can fix anything, I can fly anything, I can fight, I can strip a Star Destroyer for parts - but Poe had to get Jess Pava to teach me how to use a shower, and it took me months to get used to the idea that there was always going to be enough food in the mess hall. I’d never seen an ocean or a forest. In some ways, I’m as confused about the universe as Finn is. He’s had to learn how to be on his own, without a squad surrounding him; I’ve had to learn how _not_ to be alone.” She pushes away from the doorway, shakes herself a little as though to brush off the memories. “C’mon,” she says. “I’m going to go check the engines, and you’re with me unless I tell you otherwise, from now on.”

Phasma decides that now is as good a time as any to ask: “What is the proper acknowledgement of orders? I can tell it is not ‘I understand and will comply.’”

Rey frowns. “The fighter pilots say ‘Acknowledged,’” she says, “and the ground troops say ‘Sir yes sir.’ But - well, say what you like. I’m not really military, and you’re not my Padawan, so I don’t know that there _is_ a proper way.”

Phasma considers this uncomfortably. She _likes_ having a defined way of acknowledging orders, so that everyone knows that everything has been communicated and there is no confusion. Rey, watching her, shrugs. “Say, ‘Yes, Rey,’ and have done,” she suggests. Phasma relaxes.

“Yes, Rey,” she says, and follows Rey out of their room.

*

Phasma’s initial impression of the marketplace where Master Skywalker leads them is that it is _incredibly_ inefficient. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds of stalls of every shape and size, some so old and decrepit that she is astonished they are still standing, others clearly brand new and often painted in eyesearingly bright colors, all of them competing to sell more goods than Phasma knew there were in the entire universe. As she trails along behind Rey and Master Skywalker, trying to keep her face impassive and her back imposingly straight, she sees scarves and jewelry, food of every description, rugs and blankets in every color and fabric imaginable and some she didn’t even think existed, pots and pans and cups and plates in pottery and metal, and other things which she cannot even name. It is a noisy, crowded, jarringly multicolored assortment of goods and people, and after a few minutes she has to stop looking at the stalls and concentrate on Rey’s back, before the bewildering surroundings manage to distract her entirely from her duties.

The cantina where Master Skywalker has arranged to meet his contact is crowded with humanoids of eighteen or twenty different species, and Phasma, looking them over carefully, spots many weapons and an equal number of communicators. If any of these people are in contact with the First Order, Phasma will not be able to stop them from sending a message. But Master Skywalker and Rey - even Phasma herself, without her chrome armor - are not immediately recognizable as anyone important. The could easily be taken for any small family group: an old man and his young daughter and their bodyguard, out shopping. (Phasma is not sure if normal family groups _have_ bodyguards, but she can hardly make herself look like anything else. She wouldn’t even know how to start.)

Their contact is a humanoid alien of a type Phasma does not immediately recognize - but then, she knows very little about most alien species other than how to kill them. The First Order is dominated by humans, and only humans or very similar species are accepted into the Stormtrooper ranks, mostly because it’s easier to keep them all looking uniform if they are all roughly the same shape. The contact is three feet tall and rather furry, with enormous eyes, and is clearly a little nervous. Phasma sits down at its table when Rey gestures for her to do so, and watches the rest of the patrons while Master Skywalker greets the contact.

“How do I know you’re Luke?” the contact demands, glancing around furtively. “You might be one of _them_.”

“I would have a much snazzier uniform if I was one of them,” Master Skywalker replies calmly, and Phasma suppresses a snort of amusement. “Also I would probably look like I had a stick up my ass. And I wouldn’t be able to do _this_.” He gestures subtly, and the mug of green liquid in front of the contact lifts off the table, just an inch or two, and then lowers itself down without even a clink.

The contact blinks at its levitating drink for a moment. “Fair,” it says finally, and pulls a data chip out of its pocket, sliding it across the table. Master Skywalker palms it and tucks it away so smoothly Phasma can barely track the motion. Impressive.

“Anything that’s not on the chip?” Master Skywalker asks.

“Word is, Captain Phasma’s vanished,” the contact says, and Phasma goes stiff and still in her chair. Master Skywalker just tilts his head curiously.

“Vanished?” he asks.

“Yeah. Just gone. Nobody’s saying anything about how, or where - it’s not like she’s been erased, like they are sometimes. Just,” the contact shrugs eloquently, “vanished.”

“Fascinating,” Master Skywalker says. “Any repercussions from that?”

“Some backstabbing,” the contact says. “Or so I hear. No clear contenders for the head of the Stormtroopers, and I hear some people aren’t so happy she’s gone - I mean, she was kinda the sane one. Insofar as any of _them_ are sane.”

“Huh,” Master Skywalker says. “Well, it could be a feint - maybe she was needed for something secret. I won’t count her gone until I see a body. Maybe not even then. It’s an odd universe, you know.”

“You can say _that_ again,” the contact says fervently. It glances around again, nervously. Master Skywalker stands up, beaming.

“Well, it was so good to see you; hope we can catch up again sometime!” he says, loudly enough that people at other tables will be able to hear, if they care. “C’mon, lassies.”

Phasma has never been referred to as a ‘lassie’ in her life. But that probably means that no one will _expect_ her to be referred to as a ‘lassie,’ which is a good thing given that they’re trying to be inconspicuous. She follows Rey and Master Skywalker out of the cantina, keeping a wary eye on everything, and tries not to be distracted by the hordes of small children running wild through the marketplace or the brightly colored displays or the half a hundred kinds of sapient beings wandering around, or the thoughts swirling through her head. So she’s been declared as ‘vanished,’ has she? That’s...very interesting. It suggests that Supreme Leader Snoke may not have been in on the plot to have her cattified and subsequently killed, since if he _had_ been, she’d just have been erased from all records, as though she had never been.

She’s seen that happen. She had a commanding officer once, QN-1846, who was skilled and quick and a little too clever for his own good. She’s never known what he did to annoy the Supreme Leader, only that he was gone one day, and there was a new officer in his slot, and they were all instructed never to speak his designation again. She hasn’t. But she remembers.

But _she_ hasn’t been erased, which means that Supreme Leader Snoke doesn’t yet know that she’s defected. Which...might be an opportunity the Resistance could exploit. She’ll have to think about that. It has possibilities.

*

Back at the ship, she leans over the holoreader with Rey and Master Skywalker, skimming the information the contact has given them. It all looks...plausible. She was actually in on the planning for some of the listed maneuvers, and she points those out to Rey as being accurate enough - not the fine detail, perhaps, but the overall shape. If she were still in the First Order, she’d be a little annoyed by how much of their confidential information has been stolen. Since she isn’t, she tries not to think about how many of her Stormtroopers are going to die when the Resistance moves to counter these plans.

She is only mostly successful.


	4. In Which Intranet Security Becomes Relevant

Phasma slept in barracks for years; she is used to the sound of other people breathing near her during the night. It’s somehow different in the ship, though, when the only person she can hear is _Rey_ , who occasionally makes soft whimpering sounds and who sleeps curled up in a tight little ball under a heap of blankets in the center of her bunk. Some strange instinct tells Phasma that she should wake the other woman, or lie down next to her and share comfort and body heat; but Phasma is not so foolish as to listen to such nonsensical instincts. They might be a holdover from the month she spent as a cat, perhaps; certainly they are nothing she has ever given credence before. She stays on her own bunk, straight and still, and listens to Rey breathe until she manages to fall asleep.

In the morning she tells Rey the idea she has been turning over in her head since the contact told them that she had vanished but not been erased. Rey listens intently, then nods. “When we get back to base, we’ll go talk to Leia,” she says. “If she thinks it’s a good idea, we’ll do it.”

Phasma is faintly pleased at this further evidence that her new commanding officer is a sensible person. Hux never did like it when anyone but him had a bright idea, and Kylo Ren was prone to going off on tangents and getting obsessed with the _strangest_ things. And Supreme Leader Snoke, of course, was utterly inscrutable; Phasma never did think she understood what he wanted. Maybe, if she’s very good, the General will let Phasma ask Snoke some questions before she kills him. Though the General has already promised to let Phasma have her revenge on Hux and Kylo Ren; asking for more seems like it might be a little presumptuous. No, Phasma had better not risk it.

Phasma spends a few minutes, while Rey and Master Skywalker discuss where to go next, musing over what, precisely, she wants to do to Hux and Kylo Ren when she gets her hands on them. There are others who doubtless have the right to the death-blow - Rey, for instance, may well desire to slay Kylo Ren for the pain he inflicted on her, or Poe Dameron may wish to repay him for the torture he suffered at Kylo Ren’s hands - but Phasma has been promised revenge, and if she knows nothing else of Leia Organa, Phasma is sure that the General does not lie, not in such matters. Phasma remembers that when she was a cat, she wanted to claw bloody furrows in their lying faces; as a human, she thinks it might be nice to punch them. She has a good, hard punch: she could probably break a jaw, if she cared to. That would be very satisfying.

*

Rey and Master Skywalker end up agreeing to return to base, because Master Skywalker thinks Phasma’s idea is “sound, sensible, and time-constrained.” It is so _nice_ to work for people who listen to their subordinates and aren’t offended by good ideas coming from the rank and file. Phasma always tried to be that sort of commander to her troops - she can think of half a dozen times that one of her Stormtroopers suggested something which was later incorporated into training materials because she acknowledged the intelligence of it, and she always tried to promote such clever troopers, provided they didn’t die in proving the worth of their suggestions - but she must admit that none of the various generals and strategic officers of the First Order thought that a mere Stormtrooper’s idea could possibly have merit, even when that Stormtrooper was Phasma herself.

It is odd, she admits to herself, that the commanding officers to whom she had proven her quality, over and over, on half a hundred battlefields, persisted in believing that she was a brainless automaton, while these people who have known her in her human form for barely days already acknowledge her intelligence and qualifications. She is not - yet - willing to come to the conclusion that the First Order is wrong about its aims and means; she has betrayed them not because they are wrong but because they have wronged _her_. But the cracks in her worldview started when FN-2187 defected, and they are getting larger with everything this new life offers her: trust and companionship and that damned compassion, commanding officers who do not sneer at her, food that tastes good and missions which stretch her skills and sparring with swift, merciless (merciful) Rey in the dead of night.

*

The General is also enthusiastic about Phasma’s idea, and so Phasma spends the next three days closeted with half a dozen techs, emerging only for meals and to sleep. She eats at the same table with Finn and Poe and Rey, because she likes routine and also because she doesn’t think she’d be made welcome at any other tables. She sleeps quite well, somewhat to her surprise; apparently acting is nearly as wearying as sparring is. And after three days she is invited up to the General’s briefing room, to see the results of her labor.

“This is going out to the First Order private comm system as we speak,” the General explains to her command staff. “Phasma has given us her private comm codes, which allowed us to insert this message without it being flagged; unfortunately, we suspect that loophole will be closed as soon as the commanders of the First Order get wind of this. Still, in the last three days our techs have managed to get access to a _lot_ of information by using Phasma’s codes, and I think you will all agree that this vid is worth losing what little there might be left for us to find.” She pushes a button, and the holoscreen flickers to life.

Phasma looks out from the screen, in a very good replica of her chrome armor. (The techs had been able to find a spare suit of Stormtrooper armor, captured in some previous battle, and chrome-plating it had been relatively simple. Phasma had felt very odd putting her armor back on. Finn is quite correct: the helmets are astonishingly uncomfortable.)

“Stormtroopers of the First Order,” the Phasma on the screen says. “By now you have been informed that I have vanished and am presumed dead. I was neither slain nor captured in battle, nor did I betray you and flee: General Hux and Kylo Ren betrayed me into the hands of the Resistance.” She reaches up and takes the helmet from her head, looks out towards the audience bare-faced and implacable. “I am unharmed,” she continues. “I am uninfluenced. I have joined the Resistance because when my own commanding officers betrayed me, General Leia Organa offered me medical assistance and a chance to take revenge.” She scowls, just a little. “By betraying me, General Hux and Kylo Ren have betrayed you also,” she says. “I, who have never lied to you, say this. The First Order has lied to you and betrayed you. When the Supreme Leader orders me erased from all records, you will know that he, too, has lied to you and betrayed you. But I, who have never lied to you, say this: I am coming for the First Order. I will take my revenge upon those who betrayed me. Do not stand between me and my revenge.”

The vid ends; the General flicks the holoscreen off. “We have high hopes,” she says, “that this message will result in Stormtrooper desertion or defection. We also have high hopes that it will result in Hux or Kylo Ren being punished for their roles in causing Phasma’s defection. Therefore, effective immediately, _if_ a Stormtrooper approaches you and expresses a desire to defect or desert, do _not_ shoot them. Take them prisoner, relieve them of their weapons, and bring them to the newly designated AS-1643 base, the coordinates to which you should all have in your comm records as of now.” She slants a tiny smile at Phasma, who suggested the name for the new base and is more than a little pleased when her suggestion was accepted. “There, Luke or Rey will examine them to be sure they are not First Order plants, after which we will see about either helping them get to a safe planet or incorporating them into our own ranks.”

Major Ematt gives Phasma an approving nod. “We can use them,” he says gruffly, “especially if they’re all of the same caliber as Finn or Phasma.”

“Finn was the best of his training group.” Phasma informs him calmly, ignoring Finn’s wide eyes across the table. “I was the best of the Stormtrooper program. But all of my troops are well-trained and would be assets to your organization.”

“Good enough,” Major Ematt says. “Suppose they can’t _all_ be prodigies.” He grimaces at Finn, who, Phasma heard over dinner the previous day, has just set a new record for speed and accuracy on the blaster course. He really would have been a magnificent Stormtrooper.

“Other questions or comments?” the General asks, and when there are none, she dismisses the meeting. Phasma, somewhat at a loss, follows Rey out.

“Sparring?” Rey asks. Phasma nods.

“This I gotta see,” Finn says, and tugs Poe along in their wake.

*

When she’s not tired, Rey is _terrifyingly_ fast. Phasma is stronger, barely, and has more proper training, but Rey is vicious and unafraid to grapple even with the strength difference between them. Phasma is aware, as she and Rey dance across the mats, that they are gaining quite a large audience, but she can’t pay any attention to that, because the smallest moment of distraction is enough for Rey to get a blow in. Phasma is faintly glad that they are sparring bare-handed: with weapons, at least one of them would have a broken bone by now, and it might be Phasma. Rey’s staff looks like it could do some serious damage.

Finally Rey steps back and holds up a hand to signal the end of the bout, and Phasma bows to her and takes a few steps off to the side. Finn comes up to her with a towel; across the mat, Poe is offering one to Rey, so Phasma accepts. “Thank you,” she tells Finn, who grins.

“Just as glad you never sparred with _me_ ,” he admits. “I’m good, but I’m not _that_ good.”

“You will be,” Phasma says absently, running the towel over her face and hair. “You’ve got the potential. I’ve got several years of training on you.”

Finn, she sees when she lowers the towel, is giving her a rather surprised look. “You really mean that about me being the best of my class,” he says.

“Of course. I don’t lie,” Phasma says, vaguely offended.

“Huh,” says Finn, and then throws an arm around Rey’s shoulders as she comes over. “You’ve just terrified half the base, buddy,” he says to her.

Rey laughs. “Good,” she says. “Now maybe people won’t tease me about being tiny anymore.”

“I think that no one’s going to tease you about _anything_ anymore,” Poe says, joining them with a broad grin. “Also, I think at least one of the ground troops is in love with you.”

“Pfah,” says Rey. “No one’s going to tease me but you and Finn, you mean.”

“Guilty,” Poe says cheerfully. “But I’m quite serious about you having admirers, you know.”

“Just because you and Finn want to snuggle each other aggressively all the time doesn’t mean that I’m interested in finding someone,” Rey says. “I’m busy.”

“And young,” Poe agrees, reeling Finn in and wrapping an arm around his waist. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go snuggle my sweetheart aggressively.”

“Argh,” says Rey, and flings her towel after them as they leave.

“Such attachments were not allowed among my troops.” Phasma observes. “They are distracting and can be divisive.”

Rey shrugs. “That’s true, but they’re also...you fight harder when you care about the person next to you,” she says. “You do impossible things, because _not_ keeping that person alive is unthinkable.” She meets Phasma’s eyes. “Finn destroyed Starkiller Base to get me back,” she says. “I would do as much for him. I know you think compassion is a weakness, but you’re wrong: it’s a strength, one you haven’t yet learned the true power of.”

“I will...think on what you have said,” Phasma says slowly. “You make a good point, about Starkiller.”

“Alright,” Rey says, and then grins. “And now I am going to go find a shower, and I suggest you do the same.”

“Yes, Rey,” Phasma says, and obeys.

*

Three days later, the first defectors arrive.


	5. In Which Phasma Is A Captain Again

“We are here to serve with Captain Phasma,” the leader of the shuttle full of Stormtroopers tells Master Skywalker, who nods.

“Truth,” he tells the Resistance fighters standing with raised blasters. “Let this one through. Next!”

Phasma, standing behind the Resistance fighters, watches the Stormtrooper approach. He comes to attention in front of her, salutes, and says, “Reporting for duty, Captain!”

Phasma nods to him, a small approving gesture, and waits until all of the other Stormtroopers have been vetted and have formed neat lines in front of her. “Remove your helmets,” she orders them. “Place them and your blasters on the ground.” They obey instantly.

“This is Rey,” Phasma says next, and Rey steps forward, staff held easy in one hand. “She is my commanding officer. Obey her as you would me.” The ranks of Stormtroopers - there are nearly thirty of them - salute Rey, who nods to them, expression calm as ice. Master Skywalker had informed Rey that she would be in charge of base AS-1643 only that morning; Phasma was mildly impressed by how many swear words Rey knew. Apparently it’s traditional for Force-users to help lead military groups, and ‘will be an important part of Rey’s Jedi training,’ according to Master Skywalker. Phasma rather thinks Master Skywalker just likes making Rey flustered, but it’s really none of Phasma’s business how they interact with each other. Her place is obedience.

Base AS-1643 is not large. The General told Phasma that it was being considered as the next location the Resistance headquarters would be based at, after they leave their current one, but another base was chosen instead, so AS-1643 has only the barest facilities in place: barracks, med bay, a ship hangar, a mess hall, and an echoingly empty space to be divided up into training rooms or offices or bunks as necessary. The General sent only a few cooks and techs and medics with Phasma and Rey and Master Skywalker, clearly working on the assumption that should everything go wrong, the Resistance cannot afford to lose too many of its own people. Phasma approves of this ruthless efficiency on the part of the General. It is not cruel, as Hux was cruel, only practical.

Phasma leads her new troops to the barracks, shows them where they will sleep, leads then next to the mess hall and keeps her face impassive as they discover Avian with Blumfruit Chutney and Flatbread with Herbs and Sweet-Apple Juice. And when they have finished eating, she says to them, “The Resistance does not use designations, as the First Order does.”

Her troops look at each other warily, look at her with wide eyes. Stormtroopers - common troops - do not learn how to keep their faces blank, as Phasma has learned to do, because of course they do not remove their helmets except to eat and sleep. So Phasma can read fear and wonder writ large across their faces as easily as she can read a holomanual meant for children. “Each of you will spend this evening reading a holomanual consisting of the rules and regulations of the Resistance force,” she continues. “The final attachment is a list of names. Choose one.”

They stare at her, terrified. Rey comes over to stand beside her. “Here,” she says quietly, but with the Force ringing in her voice, “you are not interchangeable. You will each have a name. Should you choose to leave, or should you die, we will remember you.”

The leader of the Stormtroopers, a round-faced man with black hair and black eyes, who Phasma recognizes as GL-2230, says, “We are Stormtroopers.”

“You _were_ Stormtroopers,” Rey tells him, delivering the blow almost kindly. “Now you are Phasma’s troops.”

“That is the same thing,” GL-2230 argues. “That is why we are here. We serve Captain Phasma. We are Stormtroopers.”

Rey looks at Phasma, uncertain for once. Phasma herself is not quite sure what to say. “The Stormtroopers are the arm of the First Order,” Rey says, after a long moment. “You are no longer of the First Order.” She quirks half a smile at Phasma. “I have no skill at naming; if Poe were here, he could do better. We will call you Phasma’s Fighters, because that is what you are.”

The former Stormtroopers murmur among themselves for a few minutes, while Phasma keeps her face blank and impassive, and inwardly marvels at Rey’s words. Finally GL-2230 nods to his fellows, and rises, turning to face Phasma. “We are Phasma’s Fighters,” he says, and salutes. “Command us, Captain.”

“Go and read, and choose your names, before you retire for the night,” Phasma says. “Tomorrow we will begin training.”

“We understand and will comply,” GL-2230 says, and leads the troops off to the barracks in two tidy lines.

Rey sags down onto the bench and puts her head in her hands. “Why Master Luke thinks I am suited to this, I don’t know,” she says wearily. “I’ve had barely five months of training! None of it was in military command!”

Phasma goes and gets plates for both of them, pushing Rey’s plate across the table as she sits down. “You’re doing well so far,” she observes. “You will not need to do much, in any case. I will train them; you need only command.”

“That’s precisely the problem,” Rey says, though she also picks up her fork and takes a bite of her food. “It’s bad enough when it’s just _you_ going all blank and doing whatever I tell you do. There’s almost thirty of them, and if Master Luke and the General are right, there’ll be more every few days! I don’t _want_ hundreds of people saluting me and saying ‘I understand and will comply.’ It’s creepy and wrong.”

Phasma considers this while she eats. At last she says, “Finn is unique. He wants to be an individual - he chose to not be a Stormtrooper anymore. These who are coming to follow me, they aren’t choosing not to be Stormtroopers. They’re choosing to _keep_ being Stormtroopers, following a leader they trust to command them well. If you treat them like - like you treat me or Finn, you’ll confuse them. It’s bad enough that they won’t have their helmets, or food that they recognize, or the designations they’ve had since they were brought to the training bases. Too many changes and they’ll break. I’ve seen it happen.”

“Finn’s Force-sensitive,” Rey says, surprising Phasma. “He could be a Jedi if he wanted to, Master Luke says, but he’d rather train to be a medic. He’ll be very good at it: imagine having a medic who can look into you and see what’s wrong, then move the Force to fix it. But I suspect that’s part of why he couldn’t be a Stormtrooper. The Force in him was too strong.”

Phasma considers this. “That would explain how he managed to retain his individuality and his compassion despite the best efforts of his trainers,” she agrees, and pretends not to see how Rey winces at her words. “I’m not like him,” Phasma continues. “I did not defect of my own free will.”

“No,” Rey agrees, “you aren’t like Finn. But you’re still a _person_.” She stands and picks up her plate, and looks down to meet Phasma’s eyes squarely. “Change is terrifying, and so is admitting you were wrong. Believe me, I understand. But for all the things I dislike about you, I can’t say I ever thought you were anything but brave.”

Rey leaves, and Phasma clears her place and returns to her bunk on autopilot, mind whirling. To be sure, she has had a name for years, she has an _identity_ as Phasma, but is she a person? People, she saw during her short time in the Resistance base, her single mission with Rey and Master Skywalker, laugh and joke, they have children which play around them, they have _opinions_ on things like holovid stars and food and clothing. Phasma has opinions, but they are about things which relate to being a Stormtrooper: battle tactics, mostly. Beyond her vengeance, she has no particular purpose in the world but to fight and die for her commanding officers. To be sure, she _prefers_ these commanding officers to her previous ones, because they are honest and think about casualties as something to be avoided when possible, though they do not give orders so reliably as the First Order, which is uncomfortable; but she is still here to train and fight and die.

Phasma nods to herself in the mirror. No, she thinks, not a person, not as Finn is a person or Rey is a person. A Stormtrooper. Rey will understand that someday.

*

The next few weeks are too chaotic to really be called a _routine_ , but Phasma does notice some patterns. Master Skywalker and the Resistance fighters leave after the second batch of defecting Stormtroopers arrive and Rey has gotten the trick of telling if they’re spies or not - they’re not, this time at least - and after that there’s a new batch of Stormtroopers every three to five days. Phasma grows used to lining them up, letting Rey question them, ordering them to drop their helmets and blasters, and sending them off to learn the rules of the Resistance and choose their own names. GL-2230 - Gill - proves to be a competent and useful subordinate, who delegates members of his squad - the First Defectors, they call themselves proudly now - to lead the new groups in getting used to their new lives. Phasma sets them training schedules and assesses their loyalty and competence, just as she used to do for the First Order, and when they are, in her expert opinion, ready, she plans to send them on to the Resistance headquarters to be assigned to duties suited to their skills.

Between meals and training and assessments, Phasma finds time to spar with Rey most evenings; sometimes they have an audience, sometimes they don’t, but it’s always invigorating to test her skills against the smaller woman. If Phasma let herself prefer things, she would prefer those hours of vigorous physical exercise and quick reactions to almost any other part of her life, except perhaps the few minutes each rest day (an odd concept, but one which Rey insisted on incorporating into the training) during which she allows herself a mug of hot chocolate, to be consumed privately. It would not do for her troops to see their leader taking such pleasure in such a frivolous treat.

It is not really like being back in the First Order - the rules are too different, the routines too disorganized - but it is _almost_ right. Phasma buries herself in her duties, and tries not to think about all the ways her life has changed, because regardless of what Rey might believe, Phasma is a creature of duty, and that is all there is.

*

The eighth shuttle of defecting Stormtroopers contains two interesting things: the first spy, and the first evidence that the defections are starting to bother Hux and Kylo Ren. The spy is uncovered as soon as Rey gets close enough to look him in the eye, and Phasma doesn’t even need to do anything to protect her commanding officer: Rey grimaces and gestures, and the Stormtrooper collapses in a little unconscious heap. Phasma gestures for two of Gill’s squad to step forward. “Put him in the containment room and comm headquarters for pickup,” she commands, and they pick the spy up and haul him away.

The leader of this group of defectors watches them go, then turns to Phasma. “Captain, we’ve brought you some intelligence,” she says, and hands Phasma a datastick. Phasma nods and tucks it away, goes through the now-routine drill of having her new troops take off their helmets and turn in their blasters, and sends them off with the other two representatives of the First Defectors for their introduction to the Resistance’s expectations. Rey comes over to join Phasma. “Shall we go see what they brought us?”

“Yes, Rey,” says Phasma, and follows Rey to the little room which has been turned into Phasma’s office; it has a datareader, a desk, and a chair, and that’s about it. Phasma turns on the datareader and inserts the ‘intelligence’ - what in the galaxy it could be, she’s not sure - and the holoprojector turns on, beaming a tiny blue image of a very familiar command center onto the middle of Phasma’s desk.

“Is that…?” says Rey.

“The _Finalizer_ ,” Phasma confirms. “Or a similar ship. And that is General Hux.”

“And Kylo Ren,” Rey says. “I remember _him_.”

In the holo, General Hux is pacing. Phasma notes that he looks less controlled than is his norm, that his hair is in disarray. Kylo Ren is leaning back against a screen, almost lounging, and Phasma suspects that under his mask he is looking smug. The Stormtroopers stationed around the room are looking anywhere but at the General and Kylo Ren; Phasma notes the angle of the holorecording and concludes that this must have been made by the Stormtrooper on duty at the northeast door.

Hux stops pacing and turns to glare at Kylo Ren. “Nearly four hundred of them gone,” he hisses. “When I get my hands on that traitor Phasma, I’m going to take the price of every one of the deserters out of her _hide_.”

“If we’d used clones, like my grandfather did, we wouldn’t _have_ this problem,” Kylo Ren drawls. Hux clenches his hands like he wants to punch the other man. Phasma, watching, grins. Without her to balance them, they are falling apart - their hatred for each other is coming to the fore. This, then, is the first part of her vengeance.

“Well, we can’t precisely go back in time and change the recruitment methods,” Hux sneers, “unless your ‘Force’ is actually good for something? No? Then perhaps you might try to have some _constructive_ suggestions?”

Kylo Ren stands up from his sprawl, shoulders tense with anger. “Do you want me to show you what the Force is _good_ for?” he demands.

Hux gets right up into his face - well, his mask - and snarls, “Is it good for stopping the Stormtroopers from deserting, Kylo Ren? Because if it isn’t, then I don’t think I _care_ what you think it’s good for.”

“Someday Supreme Leader Snoke will tell me you are no longer useful, _General_ Hux,” Kylo Ren says, not backing down at all, “and on that day you had better _pray_ you have the time to kill yourself before I find you.”

“A scavenger girl with no training took you down,” Hux retorts, backing off half a step. “ _And_ your ‘foolproof’ trick for getting rid of Phasma backfired. You’d better hope the Supreme Leader doesn’t decide _you’re_ more trouble than you’re worth.”

Kylo Ren’s lightsaber blazes to life and crashes down through the desk beside him, wrecking it quite comprehensively. The holovid flickers twice, then ends. Rey blinks at Phasma, then grins broadly. “Well,” she says, “that was entertaining.”

“We should send that to the General,” Phasma says expressionlessly, though she privately agrees with Rey, and would like to watch it again, possibly repeatedly.

“Yeah, we should,” Rey agrees. “But let’s watch it again first.”

“Yes, Rey,” says Phasma, and hits the replay button, and carefully does not smile.


	6. In Which Stormtroopers Discover Sex

The one problem which no one anticipated in the Stormtrooper retraining program is, in hindsight, one they should have seen coming: the suppressants start to wear off about a week after the Stormtroopers defect, and for nearly a month following that point, the ex-Stormtroopers (Phasma’s Fighters, Phasma reminds herself) go through what the Resistance medic who comes to examine them calls ‘a sort of second puberty.’ Phasma herself did not have to deal with this, because she was a cat during her withdrawal phase; and Finn was unconscious and under constant medical monitoring, which reduced his symptoms substantially. Phasma’s Fighters, however, are neither cats nor unconscious, and so they get to deal with things like acne and hormonal shifts and the sudden appearance of sex drives all while awake and human.

It’s...kind of messy. Phasma tries to stay out of it as much as possible, remaining impassive and ignoring the more obvious symptoms, and tells herself during the worst moments that all of this will wear off and then her fighters will be as efficient and unflappable as she has always expected them to be. To some extent, this turns out to be true; certainly the First Defectors, who are the first to go through withdrawal, come out the other end just as competent as they were when they arrived, and Gill is, even in his worst moments, as capable a subordinate as Phasma could desire.

But still. The fighters are as bad as Finn was - no, worse, because Finn at least knew that he was being ridiculous, and also had the good sense to choose an object of affection who liked him back. Phasma watches, baffled and dismayed, as her troops flirt and sleep together and _stop_ sleeping together and take sides between each other and fight over who gets to sleep together and just generally cause chaos in her perfectly ordered world.

Phasma considers ordering them to stop being...whatever they’re being, but honestly she doesn’t suspect they’d be doing any of this if they had a choice - it seems uncomfortable and unpleasant, and she tries not to give impossible orders. And when they are _on_ duty, her fighters are focused and efficient and obedient, just as they should be. It is only in their off hours that they spend so much time fighting and fucking and staring at each other with wide eyes and blushing. Phasma is glad she was a cat for all of her withdrawal period: this is _dreadfully_ unpleasant to watch, and she can’t imagine it being any better to live through.

The Resistance medic who called it ‘second puberty’ also gave the med droids a large container of implants which all the female fighters are required to be offered. Phasma sits through the med droid’s clinical explanation of intercourse and pregnancy - all of which was covered in Stormtrooper training, though not in quite so much detail, and rather long ago - and declines an implant. She has no intention of having intercourse. But she does ensure that every female fighter is sent to the med droids within their first week at base AS-1643, and there are no accidental pregnancies among her troops.

Rey comes down like a ton of durasteel on the first case of a fighter trying to pressure another fighter into having sex. She has Phasma line all of the troops up in front of her, in the cavernous unfinished room which is the only place on base they will all fit, and informs them in crisp, harsh phrases that if she learns of _any_ of them forcing _anyone_ into sex, she will personally take the perpetrator apart with her bare hands, and leave whatever is left on a barren moon to die of oxygen deprivation. “I can _tell_ ,” she says, glaring impartially at the ranks of disconcerted fighters. “I can reach into your mind and _know_ what you have done. Have sex with whoever you like - but don’t even _dream_ of forcing anyone. Do you understand me?”

“We understand and will comply!” the assembled fighters chorus, loud and clear. Rey glares for another minute before dismissing them.

Then she sags a little, rubbing a hand over her face. Phasma stands still and silent, unsure what the appropriate reaction might be. Probably she should just ignore it - letting commanding officers know that you’ve seen their weakness is always dangerous. But Rey speaks, so Phasma steps closer to listen.

“I’m only twenty, I’m too young to have four hundred kids,” Rey says, a little plaintively.

“They are not children,” Phasma says. “They are fighters - this is all temporary. After a month, they will have completed second puberty.”

“Yeah, but they’ll still be...they’ll still want to be intimate with each other, most of them,” Rey says. “Back at the Resistance, you didn’t see it because you were a cat, but Poe explained it to me - being in danger makes a lot of people want to have sex. ‘Yay we didn’t die sex,’ he called it. Master Luke said that’s part of why Jedi meditate so much, to get those instincts under control. And that’s why all of _you_ were on suppressants, I expect, so that the First Order ships didn’t turn into orgies after every battle.”

Phasma considers this. “That’s how it is for _people_ ,” she says after a while. “But I keep telling you, we’re not people. We’re Stormtroopers.”

Rey turns to look at Phasma, and Phasma blinks in surprise, because the expression on Rey’s face is raw fury. “Force _damn_ it,” she snaps, “will you _stop saying that_.” And she strikes out with her staff, a blow that - if it landed - would be strong enough to break one of Phasma’s limbs. Phasma dodges back, startled and dismayed, and Rey drops the staff and goes for her bare-handed, teeth bared. Phasma has been wondering, these past few weeks, which of them would win if they truly sparred full-out, if they did not stop after they had both worked up a sweat; now, giving way back and back and back before Rey’s furious attacks, Phasma is mildly surprised to find that the answer is not, as she had half-expected, that her own combat training would prevail. Rey is nearly a force of nature, fierce and unyielding as a sandstorm, and Phasma is hard-put to merely block her blows and retreat; counter-attacking is simply not going to happen.

And then Phasma learns that Rey really _has_ been holding back, because Rey _snarls_ , incandescent rage in her voice, and Phasma feels her own body betray her, feels some impossible force pick her up and pin her, spread-eagled and helpless, to the wall, and knows as Rey stalks towards her that she is utterly and irrevocably in Rey’s control.

Also, Phasma suddenly realizes, Rey is stunningly beautiful.

Phasma goes limp against the invisible bonds which hold her, astonished by her own thoughts. She has never actually viscerally _understood_ the idea of someone being beautiful before; she has acknowledged physical symmetry or conventional attractiveness now and again, but it’s never meant anything to her before this moment, and she flushes scarlet with the realization that she is _not_ immune to the effects of withdrawal from the suppressants, that it is _not_ something which can be controlled or refused: she thinks Rey is beautiful, and that is all there is to it.

Phasma is reasonably sure that Rey is going to strike her - is hoping that Rey does not choose to slay her, in this moment when Phasma has just realized, to her own shock and dismay, that she possibly _is_ a person, and that her fighters are therefore probably people too - but Rey stops, fist raised, and steps back, and turns away, breathing heavily.

“I was wrong,” Phasma offers into the tense silence, somewhat surprised to find that she can speak. Rey turns back, scowling, and Phasma adds, “You can read me if you like - I am not lying to make you release me. I was wrong.”

Rey’s scowl turns to bewilderment, and she looks Phasma in the eye for a long, tense moment, then sighs and gestures, and the invisible bonds release, and Phasma lands on her feet with a sound of surprise.

“...Right,” says Rey dubiously. “You’ve changed your mind, just like that.”

“I have become possessed of new information,” Phasma says, and Rey shakes her head and scrubs a hand over her face.

“Great,” she says. “I need to go meditate. Just...let me alone for tonight, would you?”

“Yes, Rey,” says Phasma, and stays where she is until Rey is safely out of the room.

*

That night, lying on her bunk contemplating the events of the day, Phasma has to admit of a faint sympathy for Finn. This...this sudden decision on the part of her body to _want_ someone is startling and dismaying and uncomfortable, and Finn handled _his_ desire with astonishingly good grace, all things considered. Now that Phasma has other ex-Stormtroopers to compare him to, now that she has felt something of the same emotion _herself_ , she can admit that he was astonishingly controlled about the whole thing. All _he_ did was give longing looks to Poe; Phasma has already had to deal with jealous fistfights and verbal sniping among her fighters as they try to court each other. And she finds _herself_ playing images of Rey in battle over and over in her mind: the way Rey _moves_ , like a striking ophidian, the way she bares her teeth in fierce joy or fury, the way she dances across the mat and the strength in her lean arms and the grace in her blows. Even as she was quite possibly about to kill Phasma - possibly _especially_ as she was about to kill Phasma - she was glorious.

Since Phasma reached her full height and breadth of shoulder, she has rarely actually been bested in hand-to-hand combat, much less pinned. Certainly she’s never been so effectively disabled by such a small opponent as Rey is. Something in the pit of her stomach burns hot when she thinks about it, when she remembers being pinned and helpless with Rey able to do _anything_ to her. Phasma is not accustomed to her body doing anything she has not commanded it to, and if this is...is _arousal_ , then she’s not sure how she feels about it. It’s uncomfortable, and it’s making her want things she doesn’t even have the words to name. She puts it out of her mind as best she can and composes herself to sleep. Perhaps things will be clearer in the morning.

*

If her fighters are _people_ \- which Phasma must now admit is the case - then she must learn how to command people. Phasma arranges for a private comm session with headquarters, and asks first for Finn.

“What have I been missing?” she asks him bluntly, when he picks up his end of the comm connection.

He doesn’t pretend not to know what she means. “Humans need to know they’re valued,” he tells her. “The General praises her subordinates when they do something particularly well. She’ll give rewards for success in contests, and medals for valor. Promotion, too, but mostly it’s about recognition. Saying that you know that _this particular person_ did something good.”

“Acknowledging them _as_ people,” Phasma says, and Finn nods.

“Don’t worry too much about it, though,” he advises her. “They followed you to the Resistance, your fighters, because they admire and respect you. That hasn’t changed.”

“I have never done any duty halfway in my life,” she tells him. “I am not going to start now.”

Finn’s mouth quirks in half a smile. “Well, that’d be why they followed you,” he points out. “You were always the Stormtrooper’s Stormtrooper. Even when I was terrified of what you were going to do to me, I knew you were the best of the best. Now you’ll just be the Fighter’s Fighter, I guess.”

“Thank you,” Phasma says, and Finn nods. “May I speak to the General?”

“Sure,” Finn says, and vanishes. Phasma sits back a little and waits, patiently, thinking about what he said. Recognition. Medals. Promotion. Hmmm.

“Phasma,” says the General when she appears on the screen. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but something _just_ came up. I don’t suppose you could turn your base over to someone and come back to headquarters in the next, oh, week or so?”

Phasma thinks about it, then nods. “I can be there in four days,” she promises.

“Good,” says the General. “Bring Rey.”

“Yes, General,” says Phasma, and the comm link breaks.

*

Phasma calls Gill into her office once she’s informed Rey that they’re to return to headquarters with all possible speed. Recognition, Finn said. Praise. Promotion. “I have been recalled to headquarters,” she informs him. “As you are already competently handling most of the intake duties for the new fighters, I will be leaving you in charge of this base. I have every confidence in your abilities.”

Gill goes pink around the ears and salutes. “I won’t let you down, Captain!” he says fervently.

Phasma nods. “The med droids will provide you with the means to interrogate any new recruits who arrive,” she says. “I expect you to continue to train and reacclimate our troops. Send word at once if anything should arise which I need to handle; but I have confidence that you will be able to command effectively.” She thinks a moment. “Remember that our recruits - that you and your squad - are _people_ ,” she says at last. “It is too easy to forget, and yet it is the primary lesson which we must learn in order to serve the Resistance.”

Gill says, tentatively, “We aren’t really sure _how_ to be people, Captain.”

“Neither am I,” says Phasma harshly. “Here.” She pushes a datapad across the desk. “This has a comm line to FN-2187: he goes by ‘Finn’ now. He’s...a lot better at being a person than I am. I think he’d be willing to answer any questions you have.”

Gill takes the datapad carefully, almost reverently. “Thank you, Captain.”

“Dismissed,” Phasma says, unable to think of anything else to say, and though she watches him leave, she can’t quite focus her eyes on his form. Not sure how to be people. Well, that’s an understatement.

Phasma has never failed at anything she set her mind to, but she’s not even sure she _wants_ to be a person. It was far easier to be be...a blank slate, a weapon. A tool.

But Phasma does not do things halfway. If she wants her vengeance, she must serve the Resistance as loyally as she did the First Order; if she wishes to serve the Resistance, she must be a person, for they do not use humans as tools. The logic is inescapable.

She can no longer build her life entirely on orders and obedience. She must learn to be a person - must learn who Phasma is, beneath the layers of Captain and AS-1643 and frightened child that she only just remembers.

For vengeance, then, it will be worth it. And she has never failed before. She will not fail now.


	7. In Which Phasma Tries To Be A Person

Rey flies them back to headquarters, in a shuttle rather than the _Millennium Falcon_ , which Master Skywalker and Chewbacca are using for whatever missions they have been given. Phasma can’t quite help watching her admiringly as she flies the shuttle - it seems that whatever turned on in Phasma’s head to make her recognize how beautiful Rey is refuses to turn off again, and now she finds herself captivated at odd moments by the grace of Rey’s scarred fingers or the curve of her neck or the set of her shoulders. It’s distracting and unuseful, but Phasma can’t quite make herself _stop_.

The past four days have been...uncomfortable. Phasma has been trying to treat her fighters like people, and trying to be a person herself, with what she must admit has been mixed success. She doesn’t _like_ making so many choices, as it appears people must do; and she is very bad at treating her subordinates with anything other than cold courtesy and blunt orders. Thankfully, that is all they expect from her; and when she _has_ managed to commend them, their clear elation is actually very pleasant to see. Elation is...not an emotion Phasma is accustomed to causing. Respect, yes. Fear, sometimes. Dread, often. Elation? That’s new, and oddly pleasant.

Nevertheless, besides the brief pleasure of making her subordinates happy by being less cold to them - and Phasma is baffled by that - the last few days have been full of too many choices and not enough orders. They’ve also been oddly tense: Rey has not said anything about their fight in the days since Phasma admitted her error, but Phasma can’t help but remember Rey’s face made fierce with fury, Rey’s Force-powers pinning her effortlessly against a wall, and cannot honestly decide if she never wants to see that again - or if she would give quite a lot to see it as often as possible.

Phasma’s hoping that when they get to headquarters, the General will have orders for her - some mission which Phasma can carry out quickly and well. Something to shoot, or a squad to command in a raid, something Phasma could do in her _sleep_ , something which will let her not make any more decisions for a while.

Of course that is not what happens.

*

“We’ve been going through the data we got out of the First Order while you were putting together your holovid,” the General says to Phasma, once they are all settled around a table in a large conference room. Phasma only recognizes about half of the other people here, but they are all wearing rank tabs, so she assumes they are Resistance officers of one variety or another. “And we found the location, and the entrance codes, for one of the Stormtrooper training bases - the ones they use for children.”

Phasma nods.

“We want to raid it and take the children,” the General says bluntly. “How would you suggest we go about this?”

Phasma pulls the blueprints of the base in question up on the datapad she has been given and points out the entrances, the weakly-guarded areas, and the Resistance officers lean forward and take notes, listening intently. It is pleasant, Phasma supposes, to be listened to as though her ideas have merit, but it is not what she needs right now. But she gets through the meeting, answers every question and outlines half a dozen contingency plans and agrees to help spearhead the operation, because that is her duty, and because this will be a blow against the First Order which will rattle Hux and Kylo Ren to their polished boots.

But duty and vengeance will only take someone so far.

*

Phasma is running on nothing but pride and rote by the time she gets back to the room she is apparently sharing with Rey - Poe and Finn have finally moved in together - and she falls into parade rest, facing the door, and lets her mind go blank. It is an old skill, one she learned when she was as young as the trainees they are going to rescue, and she lets time flow by like water, moving over and around her without a ripple, until Rey returns.

Rey stops in the doorway and looks up at Phasma with a frown, then closes the door behind her. “Are you alright?” she asks, a little hesitantly.

“I need,” says Phasma, and, “Will you - please?” She is dismayed to find that her usual coherency has deserted her entirely.

Rey shakes her head, not in negation but confusion. “ _What_ do you need?”

“Orders,” Phasma says desperately.

Rey stares at her blankly, and Phasma begins to despair, begins to wonder if she _will_ go mad, but then Rey shakes her head again, as though jarring her thoughts free, and says, voice clear and cool as icewater, “Kneel for me, Phasma.”

Phasma goes to her knees with a thump and a sigh of relief. Rey takes a single step across the room to her side, runs her fingers through Phasma’s hair. “Stay,” she says, “just for a moment.” And she steps into the refresher and closes the door behind her.

Phasma stays, obediently, and the confusion in her mind has calmed already, just from those first few orders, to something less like a storm and more like a brisk flurry of snow. It’s vastly better. In the refresher, she can hear the faint murmur of Rey talking to someone - Rey must have a comm unit, Phasma thinks, and then puts it out of her mind and focuses on the feel of the floor beneath her knees and the echo of Rey’s voice telling her to kneel, still running through her mind cool and clear and perfect.

Rey comes out, after a while, and moves to stand in front of Phasma, and says, “Look at me.” Phasma obeys. Rey’s eyes are stone, and Phasma can read nothing in them, but that’s alright. Phasma doesn’t need to know what Rey is thinking, only what Rey’s orders are. “Tell me what you want from me, and why,” Rey says, and it _is_ an order, so Phasma obeys.

“Orders, so that I have something to anchor myself,” Phasma says, and Rey nods a little. And then, because Rey ordered it, Phasma adds, “And a kiss. Because you are beautiful and deadly.”

Rey’s eyebrows go up almost to her hairline. But she does not swear, does not strike Phasma, does not even step back and leave Phasma to despair. “Phasma who does not lie,” she says, instead, very quietly, “You could go to the General, to Master Luke, even to Major Ematt, and they would give you orders if you asked. Why have you come to me?”

Phasma thinks about it. Weeks ago when she was told that Rey would be looking after her, she took Rey’s orders because Rey was her commanding officer, and was grateful because Rey was not wasteful or needlessly cruel as her former commanders were. But Phasma has had weeks to get used to Rey, to her blunt speech and her prickly demeanor and her painful fairness, her beauty and her dangerous skill in battle, and she is on her knees in front of this tiny, deadly woman because, “I trust you.”

“Ah,” says Rey, softly. “Well then.” And she bends and puts a hand on Phasma’s cheek and presses her lips, very gently, to Phasma’s. Phasma keeps her eyes open, tries to memorize this, because what are the chances that this will happen again?

And then Rey steps back and says, “Go and get ready for bed. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”

Her voice is crisp and cool, the words an order, and Phasma says, “Yes, Rey,” and obeys.

She falls asleep more easily than she has in weeks, her mind as calm as ice, the press of Rey’s lips against hers, the echo of Rey’s orders, the only things which really matter in the universe.

*

She is still floating on the peace of mind which Rey’s orders have given her the next day, as she organizes the various parties who will be part of this rescue mission: the pilots who will take out the weapon emplacements, led by Poe Dameron, who nods politely to her; the ground troops which will kill or capture the trainers, led by a grim-faced Major Ematt; the medics who will come in after the ground troops have subdued the trainers, led by a Finn with no trace of a smile on his lips. Phasma herself will be going in with Rey and Master Skywalker, in her chrome armor, to act as a distraction. She intends to be very distracting indeed.

That night, somewhat to Phasma’s surprise and relief, she does not even have to ask. Rey looks over at her when Phasma falls into parade rest, and sighs, and sits down on her bunk. “Kneel here by me,” she says, and Phasma does, and Rey rests a gentle hand on Phasma’s head and sits quietly for a while while the storm brewing in Phasma’s mind falls away to stillness again, and then, to Phasma’s blank astonishment, bends down and places a kiss on Phasma’s forehead.

“Don’t you get killed tomorrow,” Rey says quietly, and it’s an order. Phasma files it away carefully, and a bit wonderingly. ‘Don’t get killed.’ What a strange order for someone to give a Stormtrooper. It has never mattered before whether Phasma got killed. But she is learning to be a person, and people _care_ whether other people get killed or not. _Rey_ cares if _Phasma_ gets killed. Therefore Phasma will not be killed. She is better trained, more skilled than any of the trainers at this base, and she has her orders now.

She will not die tomorrow.

*

The first part of the attack on the training base goes as smoothly as Phasma could desire - almost _too_ smoothly, to tell the truth. Rey and Master Skywalker bring the _Millennium Falcon_ in first, and the Wookiee replies to the hails from the base’s landing field. Phasma has no idea what the Wookiee is saying - it could be reciting ship specs for all she knows – but that’s the point: it confuses and dismays the landing crew, who are focusing so intently on the strange ship and its incomprehensible communications that they entirely forget to watch their screens for _other_ ships, and are therefore deeply surprised when Poe and his squadrons come out of hyperspace _far_ closer than is sane and strafe the landing field and the weapons emplacements.

Rey sets the _Falcon_ down right beside the entrance doors, and she and Master Skywalker sprint down the landing ramp before it’s even properly down. Phasma follows, impassive and deadly in her shining armor, and the Wookiee settles in with his enormous bastardized crossbow to guard the ramp for their retreat, should that become necessary.

Phasma’s armor is enough to make the guards at the entrance gape and flail, Stormtroopers not loyal enough to her to defect but not loyal enough to the First Order to shoot her out of hand, and Rey and Master Skywalker gesture as they sprint past, leaving both guards limp unconscious heaps on the floor. Efficient, Phasma thinks, and strides through, not making any effort to hide. She is a distraction, after all; the ground troops can use every second of confusion and dismay she can generate. She generates a _lot_ of confusion and dismay, as it happens. The guards and trainers are so baffled by the sight of her that only a few of them even think to raise the alarm on their comms, and Phasma shoots those quick-thinkers before they can actually act on their desires. Rey and Master Skywalker knock out the guards who do not think quickly enough, and in less time than Phasma had estimated, they are at the barracks doors. Phasma throws them open, sees the trainees scrambling to their feet, wrenching themselves to attention, hears Rey behind her gasp in horror.

“Troops,” Phasma snaps, “This is Master Skywalker. Follow him.”

“We understand and obey!” says the one closest to the door, a boy of maybe fourteen - cadet commandant, by the stripes on his uniform, but still so young that he does not know that Phasma is no longer Captain of the Stormtroopers. Master Skywalker glances at Phasma, then turns to lead the trainees out. Phasma stands in the open doorway until all of the children have filed down the hallway, then looks to Rey.

“There will be other children in the discipline rooms,” she reminds Rey, who nods grimly.

“Lead on,” Rey says. So Phasma does.

*

They are joined by a squad of medics, Finn at their head, before they reach the discipline rooms. “Master Skywalker got the trainees onto the first transport,” Finn reports, “and it’s on its way already. The surviving guards and trainers are being loaded onto the second transport now.”

“That leaves one transport for the ones in the discipline rooms,” Rey says, nodding. “Good.”

The guards on the discipline rooms are better trained than those they have already dealt with, and Phasma doesn’t give them a chance to try anything, just shoots as soon as she rounds the corner. She is mildly surprised to find that there is another blaster firing beside her, and spares a glance to see Finn, grim-faced and steady-handed, shooting with deadly accuracy. Damn, he would have been a magnificent Stormtrooper.

Rey breaks the locks on the discipline room doors with a single wave of her hand, the _cracks_ of the breaking locks echoing down the corridor, and Finn’s squad of medics split into pairs, each pair hurrying towards a door. Rey, though, keeps going down the corridor, past the discipline rooms. Phasma follows. “There should not be anything down here,” she says, as Rey picks up speed.

“There is. I feel it,” Rey says shortly. Phasma shrugs to herself.

They round the corner and there is one more door, one more set of guards. Phasma shoots them without really noticing, because Rey is almost sprinting now, desperate to reach that door. It slams open in front of her, and she skids to a halt in front of a tiny child, no more than seven years old, in faded black clothing, who looks up at her as Phasma pauses in the doorway and says, “Are you my new master?”

Rey stares down at the child. “You’re Force-sensitive,” she breathes; the child nods. “You’re coming with us,” Rey adds, “we’ll teach you - we’ll keep you safe.”

“Yes, Master,” the child says, and then looks over at the door and _cowers_ in terror. Phasma blinks. She’s intimidating, yes, but she’s not aiming her blaster at the child. “Is that - is that Captain Phasma, Master?” the child quavers.

“Yes,” Rey says.

The child goes to its knees before her, clutching the hem of her robes. “Please don’t give me to her, Master! I’ll be good! Please don’t let her hurt me!”

Phasma is startled. The trainees were never so scared of her - intimidated and respectful, yes, but not starkly terrified. It is actively uncomfortable to see the child trembling so.

“Phasma,” Rey says crisply, “kneel and take off your helmet.”

Phasma’s knees hit the floor before her mind has really registered the order; she puts her blaster down and reaches up to take the helmet off, setting it on the floor carefully. The child stares at her, then looks up at Rey with wide and devoted eyes. “Do you control Captain Phasma, Master?” the child breathes in wonder.

Rey pauses just long enough for Phasma to say, clear and calm, “Yes, she does.” Rey gives Phasma a brief penetrating look, then nods.

“I do,” she tells the child. “Phasma, protect this child. That is an order.”

“Yes, Rey,” Phasma says instantly.

The child clambers a little clumsily to its feet, regarding Phasma now with frank curiosity instead of fear. It’s an improvement.

“We need to get out of here,” Rey says. “Phasma, carry - what’s your name, child?”

“I don’t have one, Master,” the child says. “I am designated Padawan.”

“Augh,” says Rey faintly. “Phasma, carry Padawan. Let’s go.”

So Phasma emerges from the training base with a child on her hip, its little arms clinging about her neck, and a blaster in her other hand; her helmet is still on the floor in the room where they found the child.

Master Skywalker, waiting for them on the ramp of the _Millennium Falcon_ , gives her a deeply incredulous look. Phasma shrugs a little. Apparently this is her life now. It is chaotic and unpredictable, but it _does_ include Rey giving her orders in that crisp, clear voice that makes the storm in Phasma’s mind go silent and still, so really, it’s not so bad at all.


	8. In Which A Padawan Is Assigned A Family

Padawan is initially startled and dismayed by the Wookiee, but, Phasma is surprised to discover, the enormous humanoid is _good_ with children, and by the time the _Millennium Falcon_ lands at the Resistance base, the child is sitting on its ‘Uncle Chewie’s’ knee and warbling back at the Wookiee several octaves higher than Phasma suspects is accurate.

Finn meets them as they disembark, blinking at the child in clear confusion. “I thought we’d gotten all the trainees,” he says to Rey, who nods.

“Padawan here isn’t a trainee,” she says. Finn frowns in bewilderment, then grins.

“A Force-sensitive!” he says, and then, to the child, “Hey, buddy! You’ve just found the best teacher in the whole galaxy.”

The child gives him a tentative grin. “Master Rey is my teacher,” he (Phasma is not quite sure, since children are so hard to differentiate at this age) says. “She ordered Captain Phasma to protect me!”

“Well, then you’re _very_ safe,” Finn says, giving Phasma a wry grin. She gives him an impassive look back, because just now she’s so discombobulated that falling back on her early training seems like the best way to go.

*

They leave Padawan with the Wookiee while they debrief. He seems delighted to spend more time with his new ‘Uncle,’ and Phasma is somewhat relieved to be able to put him - briefly - out of her mind. She gives a succinct report of the raid to the General, who gives her an approving nod. The other group leaders also report: all the trainees were acquired and brought to base AS-1643, where Gill received them happily, the training base itself is now so much slag, they have nearly a dozen prisoners to interrogate, and the tech squad managed to get a very large amount of data out of the training base’s computers before they slagged them, including the locations of three other bases.

“Now that we know _how_ to do this,” the General says, “the other bases should go even more smoothly. Major Ematt, I want you to get with Phasma over the next few days and go over the new information and set up battle plans. Now, were there any _surprises_?”

Rey raises a hand. “I found a Force-sensitive kid,” she says, and half the people at the table give her incredulous, delighted looks. “He was being kept in the basement - says his designation is ‘Padawan’ and was apparently waiting for a Force-user to show up to be his Master. He seems to have imprinted on _me_. Also, he was _terrified_ of Phasma.”

“It is unusual for a Padawan to have a Padawan,” Master Skywalker puts in, “but the child has clearly bonded to my student, and I think it would be beneficial to both of them for the relationship to continue.”

“Master, I’m too young to have a student!” Rey protests. Master Skywalker grins at her.

“It will be a learning experience,” he says placidly.

“Augh,” says Rey, and subsides sulkily back into her chair.

Phasma has the sudden realization that what she is feeling is _jealousy_. The child will take Rey’s time and attention away from Phasma, and Phasma is unwilling to give up any of Rey’s few unscheduled hours. She contemplates the feeling for a moment, recognizing in it the same violence which has made so many of her fighters try to assault each other over the affections of others, and then puts it aside. Rey will do what Rey will do. Phasma has no claim upon her. The child requires a teacher, and Rey is best suited to it, according to Master Skywalker. Phasma will therefore do as she has been ordered, and protect the child; there was, after all, no endpoint on that order.

“Maybe Rey needs to be the kid’s teacher,” Poe says, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t all help. I mean, there’s the creche on base - he can spend time there, learning how to be around other kids.”

“We could look after him now and then,” Finn adds. “He might be interested in medical uses of the Force.”

“Chewie adores him already,” Master Skywalker says, smiling. “I’m sure he’ll be happy to babysit whenever we’re not on a mission.”

“And I will watch the child when I can,” the General says. “It is too long since I had a little one to spoil.”

“Thank you,” Rey tells all of them.

“But,” the General says, raising an admonitory finger, “we need to learn _everything_ this child knows about the First Order. If he was waiting for a Force-user, as you say, then he must have been waiting for either Kylo Ren or Snoke, and if he knows anything about them, it may be invaluable information.”

“I’ll ask,” Rey says. “But I don’t get the impression he was told much at all.”

*

Rey brings the child to dinner that night, and seats him between herself and Phasma. Phasma is dubious about this decision - the child was only recently so scared of Phasma that he was nearly fainting with it - but she is not wearing her armor anymore, which seems to help, and the child looks up at her with awe but not terror when she sits down, so Phasma allows as how it’s not actually going horribly wrong as of yet. They are joined by Poe and Finn and Master Skywalker and the General, which is mildly intimidating. Phasma has _still_ not gotten used to the General’s remarkable _presence_ , especially as compared to her relatively small size.

“Hey, kiddo,” Poe says as they sit down. “So you’re Rey’s new student, hey?”

The child nods, looking slightly overwhelmed. Rey hands Poe a roll and says, “His designation is Padawan. You’re good at names; what should his name be?”

Poe looks rather taken aback. “You name _one_ ex-Stormtrooper,” he says, leaning over against Finn, who grins at him, “and they expect you to name _everyone_. I’m not _actually_ good at names, you know. My pet fish was ‘Fishy.’”

The General laughs at him. “And I recall your pet bird was ‘Wedge Antilles,’” she teases. Master Skywalker perks up, laughing.

“What, really?”

Poe goes pink. “Ma said he was one of the best pilots ever,” he grumbles. “Kid, do you _like_ being called Padawan?”

The child looks startled, both at being addressed and at the question. “I don’t know,” he says quietly, shrinking against Rey a little. Rey slings an arm over his tiny shoulders protectively, and Phasma finds herself wanting to put a hand on his too-thin back. She doesn’t, mostly because she doesn’t want to scare him unduly.

“How about ‘Paddy’?” Poe suggests. “And then when you’re older, if you find something you like better, you can switch.”

The child’s eyes go wide, and he looks pleadingly up at Rey. “May I, Master?” he whispers.

“Of course,” Rey says instantly. “Would you like that?”

“Yes, please,” the child says. Rey grins down at him.

“Right then,” she says, “this is how you greet people. You hold out your hand and say,” she turns to Finn and offers a hand across the table, “Hello, I’m Rey.”

“Hi, Rey,” Finn says, beaming and taking her hand. “I’m Finn.” Then he offers his hand to the child. “Hi, I’m Finn, who’re you?”

The child reaches across the table, and Finn leans forward a little more so the child can actually manage to take his hand. “Hello, Finn,” the child says softly, “I’m Paddy.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Finn says, clasping Paddy’s hand gently. “This is my friend Poe.”

“Hello, Poe,” Paddy says, offering his hand to Poe, who takes it carefully.

“Hey, Paddy,” he says. “Welcome to the Resistance. I hope you’ll like it here.”

Paddy grins, the widest smile Phasma has yet seen on his tiny face. “I think I will,” he says. “It’s very nice so far.”

*

Over the next few weeks, Phasma finds herself busier than she has possibly ever been before in her life. She and Rey and Paddy and Master Skywalker and Chewbacca are almost constantly traveling, either from the Resistance base to AS-1643, where Gill and the First Defectors are doing their best to retrain nearly two thousand shocked and disconcerted young almost-Stormtroopers, with the help of Finn and a small army of medics, or on reconnaissance missions to various worlds where Master Skywalker’s contacts might know something useful about the current state of affairs in the First Order. When they’re not traveling, Rey and Paddy are training, either just the two of them or both obeying Master Skywalker, and Phasma spends her time trying to simultaneously run AS-1643, often from several light-years away, and consult with the General and Major Ematt on the plans to raid more training bases. There is even more paperwork than there was when she was a Captain in the First Order, and many more problems which arise from people being _people_ , and which she is less well equipped to deal with than she might desire.

But almost every evening, Rey makes time for a sparring match. Little Paddy likes to watch them fight - indeed, quite a few people like to watch them fight, and Phasma is actively disconcerted the first time she realizes that Poe and Finn are _betting_ on the outcome of the matches. As long as Rey doesn’t use the Force, it’s about equal odds whether Phasma or Rey will win any given bout; of course, if Rey _does_ use the Force, Phasma loses instantly, which is not exciting for anyone.

(Except that the first time they spar with Paddy watching, Rey _does_ pin Phasma with the Force, and the last of Paddy’s fear of Phasma disintegrates like mist on the water. Phasma’s glad. She has come to realize that she really doesn’t like having children look at her with fear.)

And at least once a week, Rey makes time to be alone with Phasma in whatever room they are sharing that evening, and orders her to her knees, and lets Phasma think of nothing at all but perfect, simple obedience.

So Phasma is busy, appallingly busy, but she is also, she realizes one day as Gill leaves her office with a jaunty salute, _happy_. Just...content, settled in her own skin as she thought she might never be again after she defected. So. That’s a thing.

*

The General gives Phasma an odd look as Phasma sits down across from her. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen you _smile_ before,” Leia observes.

Phasma blinks. She _is_ smiling, she realizes. She has just come from having lunch with Finn and Gill and Rey and Paddy, during which Paddy discovered the delights of hot sauce (which he loves, somewhat to Phasma’s bemusement), and Rey spent ten minutes teasing Finn mercilessly about missing Poe, and Gill made longing faces towards one of the newer defectors at a nearby table, and Finn finally managed to distract everyone by teaching Paddy a song about the parts of the body, which Paddy had then enthusiastically taught to the nearby table full of ex-trainees, so that Phasma left the mess hall to a resounding chorus of “...and the neck bone’s connected to the neck bone, there are seven cervical vertebrae!”

And as she got up from the table, Rey looked at her across Paddy’s seat and gave her a very sweet smile indeed, and the memory of that is warm and joyful in Phasma’s chest.

“I suppose you haven’t,” Phasma admits.

“Well, it’s a pleasant change,” the General says. “I’m quite impressed by what you’ve put together here.”

“Much of that has been Gill and his squad,” Phasma says. “And Finn, who has a very good rapport with the ex-trainees which I am unable to imitate.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” the General tells her with a wry smile. “All the kids I talked to said that the Captain was proud of them and therefore they knew they were doing the right thing. You’re the next best thing to a god, to them.”

“I have no desire to be a god,” Phasma objects.

“Let us say ‘parent,’ then,” the General replies placidly. “Or ‘role model,’ or ‘ideal,’ or ‘paragon.’ Any of those will do. They look up to you and wish to be like you and to make you proud. Your example shows them that they can become more than they were meant to be.” Her smile gets wider. “Welcome to being a legend, Phasma. It’s not a fun club, and no one with sense tries to join.”

“It is not a group I ever intended to become part of,” Phasma says slowly.

“Well, when you associate with legends, you tend to become one,” the General says, “and young Rey and Finn are going to be stories long after we are all dead. I recognize the signs. Force knows _I’ve_ had to deal with enough hero-worship. You stand beside Rey, and you’re something of a story in your own right.” She shrugs. “You’ll get used to it.”

Phasma grimaces. “I suppose I shall have to,” she says. “I have borne worse.”

“I’d tell you it has compensations, but I’d be lying,” the General tells her. Phasma is grateful for the honesty, if not the sentiment. “But enough of that - though you may always come to me if you have any questions or concerns on this or any matter.” She waves a hand to set the topic aside. “I _actually_ wished to ask you if you think this base could accommodate another batch of kids.”

Phasma considers it. “We’d need more room,” she observes. “We’re at capacity right now. But there _is_ room to expand. The First Defectors and the medics are capable of overseeing more children than we currently have on base. Yes, I think we could take in another group of children.”

“Good,” says the General, with a fierce smile. “And - you’re alright with us focusing on this? It is not getting you your revenge, or not quickly.”

Phasma thinks about this. “I want General Hux and Kylo Ren dead at my feet,” she says at last. “I will work towards that end until I succeed or die. But more than that - I desire that they should suffer as I suffered, and above all else they value their pride and their control. Every training base emptied, every group of Stormtroopers who defect, every bit of information we can steal and use against them, is a blow to their pride - and if I had to guess, General, I would guess that they are _badly_ injured. Perhaps they even know some fraction of the pain they visited on me.” She smiles. “And in the meantime, _I_ have found - found what it is to be a person. To be happy. To have...companions. And that is vengeance too. I did not die of their schemes; I do not now choose to give any more of my time and attention to them than is absolutely necessary. I have better things to do.”

The General beams at her. “The best revenge is living well,” she agrees. “Well, no, I tell a lie, the best revenge is slaying your enemies with your own hands. But the _second-_ best revenge is living well.”

Phasma remembers that one of the General’s bynames is Hutt-Slayer, and feels her lips twitch into a grin. “Indeed,” she agrees. “Now, about this training base…”

“Quite,” says the General, and pulls up a holo of the blueprints. “They’re likely to be more alert than the first batch…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the end of the storyline for Becoming Human; there will be a small smutlet in the same universe going up tomorrow. Thanks for reading, everyone!

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by my very patient Best Beloved.


End file.
